When Skies Are Gray
by icantthinkofaname11
Summary: Summer camp AU: Jace Herondale has been more than just a little in love with Clary Fray since he met her five years ago. They're 17 years old now and he's beginning to think that maybe, she might just be a little in love with him too.
1. Chapter 1

**Thursday, May 31, 2018**

Jace stepped out of his car, a large smile spreading across his face as the wind blew his hair around. The smell of the countryside was fresh, a welcomed change from the city smog he was used to inhaling all the time. Instead of gray skyscrapers and dirty sidewalks, he was now surrounded by green grass and tall trees.

"Jace!" Jon dropped his bag so that he could hug his best friend with a smile. Jace embraced his best friend with a wide smile of his own, looking over his shoulder for the person he knew would be with him.

"How was the drive?" Jace asked him when their hug ended and they had pulled away from each other.

"Good, Clary's around here somewhere," Jon said, looking over his shoulder for her before waving in a direction absentmindedly, not seeing her. "She just got in yesterday so we've still had quite a bit to catch up on, don't think there was a second of silence in the entire ride."

"As good as it is to see you, the person I really want to see is your sister."

"Course you do." Jon snorted, eyes once again looking for her. "We just got here and I can't imagine what she already got up to."

Jace turned away from him to look too, his eyes hungrily searching for a small girl with flaming hair and a smile he had not seen in person for far too long. The parking lot was full of cars and people, everyone finding their friends after a long school year away. He was lucky to live in the same city as Jon and therefore did not need to have a large reunion with him, he had seen him a little over a month ago. The two of them normally spent several days or nights together every month.

He also saw a lot of Alec and Izzy, who he had yet to see today, but he had seen them in March.

But Clary, Clary he hadn't seen since August and it was May 31 now which was far too long. So really, you couldn't blame him for almost giving himself whiplash every time he saw something remotely red.

"Oh, she found Izzy," Jon said, slinging his arm around Jace's shoulder and pointing the opposite way Jace had been looking. He saw the back of Izzy first, standing with her back to him and talking down to someone. The girl was smiling up at her, looking as cute and happy as always. "Wipe that look off your face, your feelings are showing."

"Shut up," Jace snapped, the smile on his face rather ruining the threat. Also, the fact that he didn't look away from Clary to deliver it.

Jace took off after the initial shock faded and Jon's laughter was loud as he chased after him. Clary looked up moments before he reached her, her eyes wide and bright before he enveloped her small frame in his arms.

Her arms wrapped around him tightly and he lifted her up in his arms, his smile buried in her hair as he breathed in her scent. She smelled like pomegranates and happiness.

"Hello," she said, smiling up at him after he let her slide back down to her feet.

She looked the same as when she left him, though her hair may have been a bit longer. Her skin was coated in the same dark freckles as always, her eyes just as round and bright and _pretty_, and her mouth as curved and full. She was barely tall enough to reach his heart which was fitting because she was the person who owned it.

"Hi." Jace reached out and took one of her long and soft curls in his fingers.

"Hello to you, too," Izzy said, smirking from where she leaned against Alec's car. "Want to feel my hair?"

"Of course," Jace said easily, stepping away from Clary to pull her into a hug, tugging on a section of her hair, too. "And Alec, how are you?" Jace asked, moving on to hug her brother and tug his hair. Alec swatted his hand away though he was smiling.

"I'd be better if it wasn't so fucking hot outside," Alec said grumpily, no real bite to his tone.

Jon laughed at his best friend's attitude, slinging his arm around Alec's broad shoulders. Jace pulled Clary into his side and looked down at her with a smile when her hand slammed onto his chest in an effort to keep her balance.

"Sorry, girl," Jace apologized.

"That's okay," she mumbled, snuggling into his side and wrapping her arms tightly around his stomach.

"Cold?" Izzy asked her, still smirking. "Cali that much warmer?"

"As a matter of a fact, yes," Clary said, making no move to back away from him, just as content to hold him as he was to hold her.

"Really? Bring enough blankets to keep warm at night or are you going to need Jace then too?"

Jace raised an eyebrow, curious to why she was pushing Clary now instead of him. He had had a crush on Clary since he was 12 and met her for the first time and Izzy had been pushing him to do something about it since she figured it out when she 14. But never had she teased Clary about it before, not like this.

"Holy shit," Alec said, rolling his eyes at his sister. "Chill."

"Just curious." Izzy shrugged, her smirk fading from her mouth slowly to be replaced with a genuine smile.

"I forgot what it was like to be surrounded by rich people," Clary said, untangling her arms from him and winding them around her best friend. "No tact at all."

"Sorry, girly." Izzy hugged her best friend back, rocking a little from side to side. "I forgot that you were normal and subtle."

"That's okay," Clary said before moving on to hug Alec and Jon, stretching up on her toes to wrap her arms around their necks. "You guys are worth it."

"Glad you think so, sister." Jon wrapped her up in a tight hug, same as Alec.

Clary fell back down on her feet before finding her way back to Jace and allowing her shoulder brushing his arm lightly. Jace tampered down the need to put his arm back around her because he wanted to touch her, and instead just leaned a little so he could feel her arm against his.

She was wearing a tank top and her shoulder reached below his sleeve so he could feel every inch of her soft skin against the hard muscles of his, a delectable contrast. She was always soft when they were hard.

Jace had met Jon when they were 11 during their first year at camp. Alec had been 12, and they had all become fast friends. They lived in a cabin together for a month and after that, there was no way they could stop being best friends. Alec was from upstate New York, only an hour from camp, but both Jon and him were from Brooklyn, three hours away from camp, two hours from Alec.

Clary, on the other hand, was 43 hours away from Brooklyn New York by car, a little under 7 hours by plane. Jace spent a lot of the school year each year on Google Maps pouring over the fastest ways to her, looking at pictures of where she lived like a full-on stalker.

Life was unfair that way, she got to spend every summer walking in the halls of his home and streets, being a New Yorker. On the other hand, Jace had been to her home only once over one Spring Break Jace's spring break matched up with Jon's. Clary always came for the summer while Jon went over Christmas break until basketball became too important to miss and he started going over spring break instead.

It had been the best Spring Break he ever had, and he had spent some on cruises or in fancy hotels in Italy, France, or Greece.

Clary lived with her mom and her mom's boyfriend out in California while Jon lived with their dad in Brooklyn, where both of them had been born seventeen years ago. They were twins, spending only their first year under the same roof before their mom left with Clary. It wasn't until Jon found a box of pictures under his dad's bed while working on a family history project that they discovered one another's existence. Valentine took Jon to California two days later to meet his mom and sister and every summer after, Clary had come. And since Jon came to camp every summer, Clary did too.

Camp Alicante was for the kids of rich mommy and daddys who didn't have the time nor the patience to watch their kids all summer. They got shipped off, but very few of the kids minded. For many, Jace included, they felt more at home in the clearing of a huge forest in Upstate New York than they ever had in their large Manors back home.

Clary, on the hand, was raised on a nice Vineyard with two parents who loved her and was surrounded by normal people with normal lives. In other words, Clary was kind _and_ beautiful, something that was virtually unheard of at Camp Alicante. People always took a liking to her, she was so sweet and real, but the four of them had the luck to be closer to her than anyone else.

But Jace was selfish with his thoughts.

He dreamed of taking her on dates and kissing her in the rain, cuddling with her in his bed and bringing her to all the parties he was dragged to in the hopes he would manage to have fun. He dreamed of getting to tell her he loved her before they slept and then again when they woke up. But worse than that, he_ thought_ it too, all school year long while they talked, shooting each other texts and snap chats, catching up over the phone and face time before they went to bed. Jace had always been a ladies man, tall, athletic, and muscular with a handsome face and a thick wallet, but he hadn't even thought about going near another girl since before last summer.

If he was being honest with himself, he would say he was in love with her.

But he couldn't afford to be honest.

So instead he just pretended that all he did was really really like her and that it wouldn't break his heart if she didn't at least somewhat like him back.

"Did any of you guys check in yet?" Jon asked them, looking over at the registration tent.

Jace shook his head but Izzy and Alec nodded.

"We've been here for at least twenty minutes," Alec told them. "We would have gone over already but they said none of you had checked in."

"How sweet." Jon pinched Alec's cheek, dancing away from the hand Alec raised to swat him away. "Then let's go, camps not going to set itself up."

Jace threw his backpack on before picking up his large duffle bag and the garbage bag with his sheets and pillow in it. Clary was doing the same as him, though she had another smaller bag on her shoulder.

"Give me one of those," Jace told her, holding out his hand.

"Jace," she started protesting before sighing at the look on his face. The only say she had was which bag she was going to cough up. She gave him the smaller bag and he carried it by the handles, taking care to keep it from dragging on the ground.

It only took a few minutes to get them all checked in before they headed to the pathway that led them into Camp. Light poles were placed along the edges because even though it was only midday, the forest was so dense at some parts it would have been hard to see without them.

Five minutes later they were standing on the other side, staring out at their home for the entire summer. Instead of only spending one month here like they did when they were campers, they spent two months here as activity counselors. It would be their second year working at camp instead of coming as campers. They made decent money, not that any of them needed it anyway. Jon, Jace, and Clary worked as lifeguards at the pool while Alec drove boats and Izzy floated where ever she was needed.

"Damn," Jon muttered, stopping at the top of the small hill and looking out at the entire camp tucked away in the large clearing. "It feels good to be back."

"You think they finally installed AC?" Izzy asked, her nose scrunching up at the thought of their hot cabins. She had two large suitcases with her, one in each hand. She wasn't one to rough it.

"Not a chance, Iz," Clary said, slinging her arm around her best friend. Clary was the first person in their lives to touch them casually all the time and when she realized just how much it meant to them all, she did it at every opportunity. "Now let's go, I really don't want a top bunk, we'll never stay cool."

"Amen," Jon said in agreement and they started down the hill.

Lake Lynn bordered them to their left, spanning on for miles with its own set of rocks for jumping, sand for beaching, and inflatables for playing. On occasion, the boys left their stands at the pool to watch the lake instead.

Three large buildings bordered them on the right. Besides the field house, the one in the middle and on the left were the only buildings on campus that were air-conditioned. From left to right, there was the dining hall, the Club House, and the Rec Center. The Club House was a very tall building that had several lecture hall esq rooms that were used for movie nights and meetings, a computer lab, several lounges, offices for directors, and a fifth-floor ballroom for skate nights and dances. Before the field house was built, the Rec Center was the only place to play inside. It was an old white farmhouse with large doors and cement floors. There was a half basketball court that didn't get a whole lot of use anymore though the octaball (ga-ga ball) set up was always in use. In the back, there was a large art-room that Clary sometimes got relieved of being pool-side to assist Brynn, the old art lady who adored Clary.

Between his seventh and eighth grade year, the camp had built the Field House in the back of the clearing. It was huge, with two turf football fields and three indoor basketball courts. There was a second floor over the racquetball, tennis, and other racquet sports that housed the fitness center which was filled with treadmills, ellipticals, and lifting equipment.

There were three outdoor basketball courts, several sand volleyball pits, tennis courts, and a baseball diamond spread out in the clearing. A large pool with an even large water slide sat near the two circles of cabins, the girl circle and the boy circle. That was where they stayed with their senior and junior counselors back when they were campers. Now they stayed at the very back of camp where there were five mismatched cabins in a line. The only thing past the cabins was the fire pit which more like a stadium because of how large it was.

Jace envied the counselors who only had to walk to the circles, something he took advantage of when he was a camper. It was a hike to get to the back.

"I take it back," Jon panted when he set his bag down on his bunk. "Doesn't feel good to be here anymore."

"That out of shape?" Jace teased his friend, opening the garbage bag and locating his sheet to cover the mattress with.

"Coach said I had to work out when I got here, nothing before that," Jon sank to the floor and started going through his own bag.

"We running tomorrow then?" Jace asked, carefully tucking his sheet around the corners of his mattress and smoothing out the wrinkles it caused. Jace was a bit of a neat freak, living in the same space as Jon often drove him nuts, not to mention the other fifty men he shared the cabin with.

The girls split up into the much smaller cabins while the boys squeezed into the large cabin with at least twenty-five bunks. The three of them snagged three bunks in the very back corner, shifting them so that they could make their own little room. Everyone did it and last year they had made the mistake of not bringing extra sheets to make the walls and had to run to the Walmart in town to buy some. This year they had come prepared and with a plan.

Two new counselors Bat and Jordan, had been hovering around the beds looking lose when they reached them. The three of them took pity on the two and showed them the ropes. They pushed the bunks so that two of them made a square with the walls and the other one sat against one of the walls. They left a gap between the two wall beds that was just big enough for them to walk through. Jon snagged one of the box fans and one of the oscillating ones from the main part to put in their 'room' so that they blew directly on them. Jace, Jon, and Alec snagged the three lower beds while Jordan and Bat climbed into the lofted ones of the wall beds.

"You got an extra bunk?"

Jace turned to see Julian leaning between the beds with his bags and watching them all with a smile. He was a year younger than them and had been a camper last year instead of a counselor. Jace was happy to have him back all the time now, he was a cool kid.

"Julian!" Jon got to him first, pulling him in for a hug. "Yeah, the one right above me."

Jace and Alec both hugged him and introduced him to their other roommates before he started emptying his own belongings.

"This is cool," Julian said, looking around their little space. "Sebastian was trying to do this but doesn't have a corner unit so it's rather pathetic."

"It's also Sebastian," Jon pointed out, laying on his now made bed. "What a prick."

Jace laughed from where he kneeled next to his bed as he got everything in order. They had hung the sheets from the tall posts of the bed and tacked them to bottom so they wouldn't blow from the air the fans created. The sheets were thick enough that they weren't see through and despite the situation, Jace was pretty content with what they had done.

He plugged his extension cord/surge protector into the wall and used a command strip to stick it on to the post so that Jordan's cords could reach it while he laid in bed. There wasn't really a need for their phones or laptops during the days but they were nice to have on their rare early nights. Jace's phone had been dead for three days once last year and he hadn't even noticed and never would have except for he had about twenty missed calls from his dad and several angry voice messages.

"Damn, Herondale," Julian whistled from his now made bunk. "You really thought of everything, huh?"

"Last year we had come quite unprepared and had to make a run to Walmart, I just brought everything back."

"I'm just grateful I couldn't find a bed near my friends, their space isn't nearly as cool as this." Julian laid his head on his pillow and sighed loudly in content. Jace snorted at the kid and collapsed on his own bed.

It was 1:17 now and they were supposed to meet at the field at 2:00 for their first meeting with Luke. He debated between resting after the long travel day or going to see Clary and Izzy but he didn't want to bother them before they were ready. He opted for setting an alarm for ten till and closing his eyes, the familiar noises from the fan and the talking from the rest of the cabin causing him to doze in out of consciousness for about twenty minutes before Clary and Izzy walked into their room.

Thank God that they didn't have the same no boys and girls in the same cabin policy they had when they were campers.

"How many boys got the pleasure of you two walking in on them before you found ours?" Jon asked with a smirk as Izzy sat down on Alec's bed by his feet. Clary slid into Jace's bed, laying down so that her back was against his front. They were spooning. He was surprised but not complaining as he wrapped her small body in his large arms and shared his pillow with her.

"Just a couple." Clary smiled over at her brother before closing her eyes and letting out a quiet sigh that made him smile. She was so freaking cute.

"We might have just seen Sebastian naked," Izzy confessed, biting back her smile. "But God I hope that wasn't him."

Laughter morphed Clary's resting face as they both roared with laughter, joking about something they didn't seem in a hurry to let them in on.

"Not worth the hype?" Julian asked, dipping his head over the side so he could see Clary. She stood up, making Jace frown at the loss of her warmth, yelling his name and throwing her small arms around him in a hug. She had to stand on her very tippy toes but that didn't stop her.

She was so fucking cute.

And my God, that ass. He hadn't gotten a good enough look of it in her cut off jean shorts, but now he didn't think he'd ever be able to look away. They had ridden up a little and he could see her legitimate cheeks. It was round and perky and hanging out of her shorts as she stretched her perfect legs. Jace knew from several overheard conversations that he wasn't the only one who appreciated her curves and as much as he didn't want to hear it, he couldn't blame them for what they were thinking.

She was so fucking hot.

And they had as much as right as him to look at her ass, which none at all.

"Not at all." Izzy shook her head at Julian's question. "I'm no stranger to seeing soft dicks and that's got to be one of the smallest I've ever seen."

"Oh," Jon said as leaned out of his own bed so that he could point properly. "Bat and Jordan, this is my sister Clary and that's Alec's sister Izzy."

The girls both smiled and waved at them, exchanging a couple words that were completely lost on Jace because he was too busy staring at Clary.

Jace remained lost as Clary slid back into his arms and pressed that beautiful ass back into him as she snuggled into him. Her hand curled around his hand that was splayed out on her tight stomach while the other one slid under her cheek. She really was precious.

"I've missed you," she told him quietly, looking back a little so that she could see his face.

He smiled at her, squeezing her more tightly to him. "I've missed you, too, sunshine."

She grinned at the nickname, shutting her eyelids so that he couldn't see her brilliant green eyes. And so that she couldn't see the way his whole face revealed just how smitten he was with her as he watched her. Sometimes it was impossible for him to hide how he felt about her.

They talked every day during the school year and often during the school day. His friends back home teased him mercilessly for the way his face transformed when he opened her messages or snapchats. It got worse when they realized she was Jon's twin sister, someone they all saw several times a month because of how often Jon and him hung out. They didn't know a whole lot about her, just that she lived in California, was a gorgeous redhead, and that she held Jace's affection since they were 12 and he met her for the first time.

Almost all of them had never met her and Jace knew that if they ever saw the way he acted around her he would never hear the end of it. He also knew that he wouldn't care one bit.

His feelings for Clary were completely out of his control and that was something he had come to peace with a while ago.

The annoying beeps of his alarm broke their moment several minutes later and the eight of them got to their feet to walk to the field for their first meeting. All of the cabin counselors were spending the day together doing bonding exercises and things while the rest of them started getting the camp fit for people. They all got a small break for dinner at the dining hall where they all sat together with the pizza that Luke had ordered for them because the kitchen staff wasn't ready to cook for people yet.

Their day ended at the fire pit as they all sat around together, both activity counselors and camp counselors. Besides a ten minute period where he had sat with his cousin and his best friend who worked as camp counselors between their school years away at college, he spent the entire time leaning back between Clary's legs as she sat on the bench above him.

It was a good start to what he was sure would be an even better summer.


	2. Chapter 2

_thank you all so much for the reviews and favorites and follows and all that shit :) my plan is to post every thursday but i'm a college student, and as i'm sure every college student - or any student for that matter - knows, life doesn't always take into account your plans. this story is kinda like half prewritten because i've had this idea for ages, as you could probably tell from the dates at the top of every chapter, so please be patient with me if my upload is a little late because i'm always changing or scratching things. and hopefully, i'll be able to squeeze in another chapter some weeks. here's to what's hopefully going to be a good ride, cheers!_

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**Saturday, June 2, 2018**

Jace was tired but happy, which was normally how he felt during his summers here at Camp Alicante.

He had spent the entire day cleaning out the gross pool. New York winters were brutal and it definitely took a toll on the camp facilities. Luke would regularly drive over on his four-wheeler during the winter but one man could only do so much.

So Jace and some other people he didn't really know had spent hours draining the pool of all the gross water and picking out the matted leaves and other gunk.

Hence, the tiredness.

After a long forty minute shower, Jace had found Clary and Izzy spooning in his bed while they waited with Jon and Alec for him. The five of them were now walking through a dark part of the forest on a path towards town. Camp Alicante was located right next to a small town that had a population of 1500 with a two-pump gas station, a Walmart, and a 24-hour diner that made the best milkshakes and fries.

Clary was on his back, thighs resting on his forearms and chin tucked on his shoulder, the fly aways from her hair brushing his skin with the wind.

Hence, the happiness.

"Fuck," Jon swore, stumbling a couple steps after he tripped on a large rock.

It was against camp rules to sneak out and they were pretty sure that the majority of camp didn't even know this path existed. The only reason they knew about it was because Jon's dad had went to this camp when he was a kid and had shared the little secret with them. Because of the secretness of the path, it wasn't lit so even with their flashlights the path was still pretty dark. Unfortunately for them, Jon's mishap with the rock wasn't uncommon for any of them.

Their own stumbles didn't stop them from making fun of their friend, of course.

Jace could feel the curve of Clary's mouth against his neck as she smiled at her brother's mishap. If Jace hadn't already been smiling, the feel of her smile and the sound of her pretty laugh right next to his ear definitely would have made him.

The path got a little lighter as they neared the opening and the colors of the setting sun dipped between the trees.

"I've been craving one of these milkshakes for months," Izzy practically moaned as they stepped out of the woods and into someone's yard. They made this run several times a summer since they turned 14 and had only run into the owners three times. Luckily for them, it was an elderly couple who thought their friendship was sweet and told them they never minded when the five of them cut through their yard.

Clary made a noise of agreement next to his ear at the same time Jon made the same noise. Twins.

Three minutes later they were walking into the dinner and getting seated by one of the familiar waitresses whose name tag read Denise. She looked a little older than Jace's mom but with laugh lines and a soft figure, two things that his mother would never be caught dead with.

"What can I get y'all to drink, darlings?" She asked, her voice drenched in that small town accent that everyone around here seemed to have.

"I think we'll all just have waters," Clary said hesitantly from her seat next to him, looking around at the rest of them for someone to disagree. Her thigh was pressed against his and Jace was so distracted he would have agreed to just about anything that came out of her mouth.

After no one disagreed, Denise nodded. "Alright, I'll be right back with those for ya."

"Should I go for oreo or cookie dough?" Jon asked, looking at the milkshake section of the menu.

"Chocolate," Alec said, not bothering to look at the menu because he already knew exactly what he was getting.

"What are you going to get?" Clary asked him, leaning in as she looked at the menu they were sharing. She had showered too, exhausted and sticky from her day scrubbing the camper's cabins down, and her shampoo smelled even stronger because of it. It was intoxicating.

"I don't know," Jace told her, looking away from the menu so he could see her face. "But I'm for sure getting their fries."

Her smile was devastating. "I knew you were smart."

Jace couldn't help but grin at her in response to her smile. He always smiled more at camp than he did at home and after a full day with his friends yesterday, his cheeks had ached.

"Are you getting the usual?"

"I don't know." She bit her lip. "Like I think I'm hungry but I don't know."

"Like hungry hungry? Or like just want to eat hungry?"

She laughed. "I think I just want to eat hungry." Clary's smile faded as she pouted, resting her head on her arm. "But I already ate way too much today, Izzy and I got into the popcorn at the snack shop when we were done cleaning."

"Calories don't count at summer camp, remember?"

"They do when you're here for two months." She said, shaking her head at him at the very thought. "If I lived with that philosophy, I'd be two hundred pounds by July."

"You'd still be a dime," he reassured her with a wink, smirking slightly at the light flush that spread across her cheeks.

"Gag me with a fucking spoon," Jon said from across them, his arms crossed over his chest in what he thought was an intimidating stance. Jace just thought he looked like an idiot.

"Here ya are, honeys," Denise said before setting down their waters. "Are y'all ready to order?"

They all nodded and Clary lifted her head and arms from the table, leaning back so that she could talk to the waitress.

"Uh, can I just get a dark chocolate milkshake, please?" Clary asked, starting them off.

"Sure thing sweetheart," Denise said, writing it down on her notepad before turning to Jace. "And what about for your boyfriend?"

"Oh, uh," Jace stuttered, all of his usual charm flying out the window. "I'm not her... um, can I just have a peanut butter and chocolate milkshake with a side of fries?"

The other three were laughing into their hands and even Denise looked like she was enjoying their obvious discomfort as she jotted his order down. Clary was laughing, her face a pretty pink as she looked at him almost shyly. They both seemed unusually uncomfortable.

"Can we get two chocolate shakes?" Izzy said for her and Alec, relishing the moment with way too much pleasure.

"And I'll have an oreo shake with a side of cheesy fries." Jon finished them off, collecting the menus as Denise walked off to tuck them back behind the condiments.

"Well that was fun," Alec said, smirking at Jace and Clary. "I wonder why she thought that?"

"Yeah, like Izzy and I are sitting next to each other too but she didn't think we were dating." Jon tapped his finger on his chin, feigning a look of thoughtfulness. "So I wonder why she thought the two of you were?"

"Maybe she just figured there's no way someone as pretty as her can be with someone as ugly as you," Clary countered, crossing her arms over her chest as she dared him to say something. Jace hid his smile behind his hand, deeply amused like every time she got sassy.

"Oh? So you think Jace is pretty enough for you then?" Jon asked, mirroring the same look as his sister.

"Have you seen his face?" Clary countered, steely toned. It was a good thing she wasn't looking at said face because he was blushing as red as a tomato. And it wasn't like he was a stranger to compliments from girls, he just wasn't used to them from _her._

"No, actually, I'm blind, care to describe it for me?"

Clary leaned forward in her seat, her normally soft features narrowed at her brother as he mirrored her for the second time. They were only a couple inches away from each other, having a conversation with their eyes as only siblings could. In the end, it was Jon who pulled away with a resigned sigh.

"Okay, okay, okay," Jon said, slumping back in his seat and looking none too happy about it. "Anyway, how bout this weather we're having?"

Alec snorted, turning his head as he tried to hide his laugh in his hand and ultimately failing terribly. Jace put his head in his hands and groaned loudly, wanting to sink in his chair and disappear. This isn't how he wanted to talk to Clary about his feelings so he just wanted them to shut up.

"That is literally the worst thing you could have possibly done," Izzy told Jon, rolling her eyes at her friend's stupidity.

"You okay?" Jace asked Clary quietly, turning a little towards her so the rest of the table couldn't hear him.

"Just peachy," she muttered as she played with the straw in her cup.

He pursed his lips before letting them tilt up a little. "You really think I'm pretty enough for you?"

"I don't think you're privy to that type of information, Mr. Herondale."

"Oh yeah?" He leaned forward, his lips fully tilted now. "And who is?"

"Oh my God," Jon groaned, making Clary turn her pretty eyes away from him to look at her stupid brother who Jace very much wanted to kill. "Would you guys quit it?"

"You are the worst best friend ever," Izzy told him.

"What?" Jon gaped, turning to her. "I'm the best fucking friend ever."

Izzy rolled her eyes and Jace was grateful when she didn't elaborate. His silent pleas for the conversation to end were answered when Clary's wrist started vibrating, indicating that her mom was calling her.

"Hello?" She answered, surprised that her mom was calling her. "Yeah, yeah."

She excused herself from the table with a finger and walked out the front door. Jon looked like he kind of wanted to go after her to make sure everything was okay but before he could Izzy slapped him over the head.

"You idiot, stop interrupting them."

"Hey," Jon exclaimed, rubbing his head and glaring at his friend. "Excuse me for not wanting to see my best friend all over my little sister."

"Well you're going to have to get used to it," Izzy told him with no sympathy at all for the dude. "And I, for one, would rather watch him trip over himself for her than hear him mope all school year long because he just likes her so much and she doesn't know and what if she's with someone else."

Jace winced a little at her imitation. All of those things had come out of his mouth at one point or another but hearing it from someone else made him sound so desperate. He'd probably be upset if it wasn't true.

"Okay, okay, okay." Jon put his hands up in surrender. "I'll be better."

"Or we can just stop making things awkward, period," Jace suggested, leaning back in the booth and stretching his arm on the back of it.

"Now where's the fun in that?" Alec taunted with a smirk.

"I just," Jace started to say before licking his lips and checking behind him to make sure she wasn't walking back over. "Something feels different now."

"What do you mean?" Izzy asked, leaning forward a little in excitement.

"You know," Jace prompted, looking around at his friends and shrugging his shoulders a little, feeling foolish. "Just that maybe she likes me too?" Izzy rolled her eyes, falling back in her own booth and looking extremely disappointed in him. He instantly heated up, getting defensive and demanding, "What?"

"I thought you were supposed to be smart?"

Jace glared at her, feeling a mix of hurt, frustration, and confusion. Was she implying that of course she liked him? Or was she implying that of course she _didn't_ like him?

"What's up?" Jon asked Clary as she approached their table again.

"Nothing," Clary said, settling in her seat and letting her head fall back on his arm. He felt the same sensation in his stomach he always did when they touched. "Just something about the vineyard."

"And she needed your help?"

"I'm not just a pretty face, you know," she said sarcastically, sticking her tongue at him.

Jon shook his head though he was smiling. "That's not what I meant."

"Yeah, I know. It was just about a sale I made before I left and forgot to write down, the books were off and she wanted to ask before she did the calculations again or freaked out on someone."

Jace watched as Denise approached their table with five milkshakes on a platter. "Here ya are, darlings, and your fries will be out in just a few minutes."

"Thank you," Clary said, sitting up and helping her pass them along the table without making her tilt her pan too much.

"Fuck," Izzy said the moment Denise was out of earshot and she had slurped up a large mouthful of her shake. "This is heaven."

They all nodded, sipping at their own shakes. This place had to use magic in making their shakes because there was no way they came from this earth because if they did, there would be no way that this was the only place that sold them. Jace had never had a milkshake as half as good as the ones here and believe him when he said he had tried.

"It's so good it's sinful, actually," Alec corrected his sister and Jace couldn't help but think that was a better word for it than heaven.

"I have tea," Izzy said, setting down her shake as a thought came to her suddenly. "Well, Clary and I have tea."

"Which is?" Jon asked, setting down his own shake and looking over at her.

"We're living with Seelie and Kaelie this year as you guys know and they told us something interesting that everyone at camp seems to know but us."

The boys' eyebrows all rose. There wasn't much that went on at camp that people didn't hear about, especially things that _they_ didn't hear about. They were all quite popular in their own right, even if the term popular seemed way too middle schoolish for him to say. What he meant was that they had a lot of friends here at camp and friends liked to talk.

Clary was grinning next to him, looking to be on the border of losing it all as she watched Izzy explain what they learned. "Last night Seelie was asking the usual bullshit about Jace and whether he would be willing to fuck their sexual tension out in a closet somewhere, you know, the usual. Apparently, it's her goal to be the first girl at camp to be with the entire trifecta."

"The what now?" Jon asked, sounding completely dumbfounded.

"Apparently when the three of you were fourteen the rest of camp nicknamed you the trifecta until they found out Alec batted for the other team and they renamed Sebastian the third member."

"Talk about a fucking downgrade," Clary interjected under her breath and Jace felt his lips twitch.

"That is the dumbest fucking shit I have ever heard," Jon said, looking around at the rest of them as if daring them to disagree.

"We thought they were joking at first," Clary said with a shrug, pausing to sip her milkshake. "But sadly they weren't."

"The trifecta?" Jace said, looking over at Jon in his own bewilderment. "No, there's no way this is real, this is like some middle school shit."

"Wait, wait, wait," Alec said, waving his hand around like he was realizing things and had to bat away all the other thoughts. "And Seelie plans to seduce him for the sole reason of being the first person to say they've been with all three?"

Jace felt a little violated. What a sucky reason to try and get with him with all these years, he had thought it was because she thought he was hot or something. It used to boost his ego when he felt down about his nonexistent progress with the redhead angel sitting next to him.

"That's so fucking wrong," Jon said, shaking his head. "And we never even had sex, we barely reached third base."

"And she's been with Sebastian?" Jace asked, so many thoughts coming to his head at once. "How did he have the time with all the campers he was seducing last summer?"

"And what about Kaelie?" Jon asked before Jace's question could be answered. "Doesn't she know her best friend fooled around with Jace?"

Jace winced at the reminder. "Hey, we never even reached second base, it wasn't exactly fooling around."

Clary snorted, sounding deeply amused. "You should have heard the way she talked about the kisses you two had, she made it sound like you were a god."

He felt a feeling of deep shame curl up his stomach. It wasn't like he could change the past but he could regret it. There was something in Clary's voice that told him she wasn't as amused as she was trying to seem. He wanted to tell her that he couldn't even remember what it felt like to kiss her, and that it had only happened twice, not to mention the fact that he hadn't gone near a girl since he visited her in California over spring break during his tenth grade year, almost one and a half years ago.

Denise slid the fries in front of them, topping off their water in the uncomfortable silence around them. They were all in their heads about something and all Jace wanted to know was what was going through Clary's pretty little head now.

"Seelie didn't have the same sentiments as Kaelie," Izzy said, and both Clary and Izzy grinned at one another. "She doesn't have a very high opinion of Jon's hands."

Clary covered her laugh with her hand, missing the very affronted look Jon was now wearing. "She'd be the first."

"That was because she was your first," Jace said, also laughing at his best friend. He dodged the cheese covered fry Jon threw his way by ducking behind Clary's fiery mane. If he stopped a second to smell her hair as he pulled back, well, sue him. She snatched one of his fries, popping it in her mouth with a perfect smile that was so her it made his heart clench painfully.

"Okay, enough of all this middle school shit," Alec said, waving it off with his hand. "Nothing should change just because we know about it now."

"True," Izzy said, nodding as she stole of Jon's fries. "It's not like Seelie has a chance with Jace anyway and I don't think she's stupid enough to actually do something about it other than talk."

Jace raised his half-finished milkshake up in the middle of the table. "Well, here's to hoping that none of that shit touches us."

They all raised their glasses. "And to another unforgettable summer."

Jace turned to Clary at her words, echoing the cheers of the people around him as he looked at her. Cheers indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Monday, June 4, 2018**

Jace was doubled over with his hands on his knees and a stitch in his side. Jon had already collapsed on to the ground next to him with his arm curved over his eyes as he tried to catch his breath.

"Why did we do that?" Jon panted.

"Because our coaches are a bunch of headasses." Jace's legs went out from under him and he fell down next to Jon in a heap. "How far was that?"

"6 miles." Jon managed to get out as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. "A really fast 6 miles after an entire ab workout."

"Fuck them," Jace panted, his eyes closing. "We have to do this every day."

"Except Sundays," Jon reminded him, reaching over to his chest in mock celebration.

Jace raised an arm in a sarcastic fist pump.

"What time is it?" Jon asked. "I forgot to put on my watch."

Jace opened his eyes and turned his wrist so the screen lit up. "7:27, breakfast in thirty."

Jon made a noise that let Jace know he understood before he fell on his back again. Jace reclosed his eyes and they laid there catching their breath for another couple of minutes before heading into the cabin to shower. They stepped out of their showers with towels around their waists just before the mad rush of people scrambling to get ready before breakfast filled the bathroom

They both changed openly in their 'room' with no shame. Jace had seen every one of his roommates butt-ass naked and some of them he had only met a couple of days ago.

Alec was leaning on the wall on his bed, already changed and ready for breakfast, scrolling through something on his phone as he waited for them.

Jace chucked his now very unnecessary towel at Alec to grab his attention.

"You ready to go?" Jace asked, bending down to lace up his shoes.

The amount of sass in the look Alec gave him while he sat up was unreal. "You act like I haven't been waiting for you dumbasses for the past ten minutes."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Jon hit him on the shoulder as he walked by, also fully ready now. "We get it, come on."

They walked to the dining hall in their matching purple camp t-shirts that they always had to wear on the first day of camp. Most of the people inside of the hall were also wearing the same shirt. He looked around for Clary and Izzy but didn't see them, which didn't surprise him, they weren't exactly known for being punctual in the morning.

The three of them joined Jordan, Bat, and some other cabin mates at a large rectangular table right next to one of the two open stations. Some time since his first year here, the dining hall had been redone to provide food that was actually good. There were five stations that served different foods around the large building, three that always served the same things, a pasta bar, burger bar, and pizza bar, and two that had a constant rotation, one with vegan-friendly food and the other for the rest of the population. At lunch and dinner times, there was a large salad bar in the middle of the room that Jace didn't think he had ever really been to. Normally for breakfast, only the two rotating stations were open. Over the past few days that they had been there those had been the only two bars open at every meal and Jace was excited for the campers to get here so he could actually have options again.

He heard Izzy's laugh and turned his head just in time to see Clary enter the building.

Clary looked like she did every morning he saw her, cute and sleepy. She liked to snuggle up in heavier clothes when she was tired so it was no surprise to him to see her wearing a sweatshirt. It was a surprise for him to note that it was an old one of his. He had given it to her when she got cold at a bonfire last night and hadn't even noticed that she had never given it back. It had been a little big on him and it completely swallowed her small frame. His high school name was on the front and he knew, most importantly, that his last name was printed on the back.

They walked up to the table and took the last two open chairs, Clary's nearly unconscious body collapsing into the seat next to him with a dramatic sigh.

"You look like shit, sister dear," Jon told her, reaching across Jace to ruffle her hair. Normally, Clary smacked his hand away, but she was always too tired to muster the energy in the mornings.

"Thanks, Jonny," Clary mumbled, shifting slightly so that her head was resting against his shoulder.

He let her rest there until the bell rang for them to get in line and they both got to their feet, one much quicker than the other. The sleeves slipped over her hands and her bare thighs were once again on display, he could only assume she was wearing shorts under his hoodie because he had yet to see them. They stepped behind the few people already in line and he could see his last name across her lower back with his good hanging down her back.

As he stood behind her he tugged on a stand of her hair, she almost always wore her hair down in the mornings and that was another thing he loved about her in the mornings because it somehow made her even prettier.

"Nice hoodie, Fray."

She glanced down at her own body before smiling shyly up at him. "I didn't notice until I was back in Cali that I forgot to give it back and I was going to give it back but then I got in the habit of sleeping in it."

"That's okay, sunshine," he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a light hug because honestly, he thought he might die if he denied himself the urge any longer. "It looks better on you anyway."

She snorted, letting her forehead fall against his chest as she wrapped one of her small arms around him. "You're such a cliche."

"Only for you."

She shook her head as she pulled away from him, her cheeks flushed a light pink. It made him smile as she handed him a plate before grabbing one for herself.

The boys made sure she at least ate something for breakfast every morning, their days on the stand were long and hot, they didn't need her getting sick from the heat. He watched as she grabbed an apple and a bowl of yogurt before waiting for him. It was better than nothing, he supposed. His own plate was full of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and some fruit. The only time she ever added to her plate was on the rare occasion they served bacon, and maybe the occasional waffle.

She took his plate from him and walked them to the table while he went to get their drinks. A glass of milk for him and one of orange juice for her. They had a system every morning, you see, because they just worked like that.

"Thanks," she said with a soft smile when he set the drink in front of her.

"No problem," he returned her smile before picking up his fork and stabbing at his eggs. They were the first things he ate because he couldn't stand cold eggs. Clary crinkled her nose next to him because she couldn't stand eggs at all, the smell included. If he didn't need to follow some sort of eating regime because of his annoying coach, he wouldn't force her to smell them almost every morning.

"We already know Kaelie and Seelie are in your guys' cabin," Jon started, talking to Izzy and Clary. "But are there any other hot girls in your cabin?a"

"You're looking at them," Clary stated, her mouth full of her yogurt and her hand under her chin like she was showing her face off.

Jace couldn't help but agree even as Jon snorted.

"You're funny," he deadpanned. "Now, seriously, Jace and I can't go into this summer blind and neither one of us are going anywhere near the devils."

"No, _you _can't." Jace threw a piece of his egg at him, he also hated eggs and the face of disgust made Jace's lip twitch. "I'm not interested."

"Come on, you did this last summer too."

Jace shrugged, "I'll be the dutiful wingman as always but no more than that."

He didn't miss the way Izzy was smiling at him but he refused to look in her direction. He also knew Jon was just goading him, Jon knew better than anyone how much Jace cared for Clary.

"What about guys?" Iz asked, saving Jace from having to respond, turning back to Jon. "This information doesn't come free."

"What information?" Jon looked at her.

"Please, you two and Sebastian are the three cutest straight boys here and we heard all about you the other night."

"Really?" Jon laughed as Izzy nodded. "Nice, you've got to help us stay away from the crazy ones."

"Just you," Jace butted in, reminding him and a certain redhead that he wasn't interested in anyone else.

"Well, at first they didn't know we were all friends let alone related," Clary said with a little laugh, "then Kaelie came into the cabin and spoiled the fun, they quieted down after that."

Jon laughed, too. "The guys don't bother trying to talk about you guys, they already know we wouldn't like it."

Izzy waved him off. "I'm not worried about that, I just need to know if there are any cute ones." She turned her eyes on to Alec. "You must have seen some."

He rolled his eyes. "There are cute boys everywhere, find one for yourself."

"You guys are no help," she huffed, though she wasn't mad in the slightest. Izzy did just fine on her own.

"Whatever," Jon said, waving her concerns off in favor of his own. "I can't make it all summer so I just need to find a chill girl to hang out with every once in a while."

"Ew, what the fuck." Clary scrunched up her nose in disgust. "When did you become such a man-whore?"

"Since I was like fourteen, you were around, don't play dumb." He smirked back at her.

"Yeah, but you would at least wait until I wasn't around, what would you do if I started talking about my sex life in front of you?"

Something in Jace's stomach twisted painfully. He never wanted to hear about her sex life, unless it was with him of course.

"You're my baby sister, that's gross." Jon looked truly disgusted at the thought.

"You're older than me by twenty minutes." She rolled her eyes. "That doesn't even count and you died twice during that time anyway."

"Yeah, and you weighed like three pounds, your point?"

"Maybe that was because you hogged the whole fucking womb the entire nine months." She countered. "Trying to kill me then, too."

He stuck his tongue out at her, which she mirrored.

"I'll be right back," Clary said to him, setting her apple core in her empty yogurt bowl and pushing herself to her feet. He watched her go in confusion until he figured it out. She was headed towards the coffee machine and that made him smile, he had never met someone more addicted to coffee in his life. And she drank it black!

"Better?" He asked her when she returned looking a little more alive.

"Mhmmm."

After they had all finished they dropped their dished off in the back and cleaned up the table before splitting up. The girls had to hurry back to their cabin to change since they had decided to just roll out of bed earlier. Then they all got to work in order to clean up the messes they had made since they got there. All of the communal bathrooms needed to be cleaned, the rec and clubhouse needed to be put in the same order they had found them, and the snack shops needed restocked. Yesterday they had all used the swimming pool and Jace and Jon were in charge of making sure it was in tip-top shape once again.

While the activity counselors were all working on this side, the cabin counselors had traveled through the woods to reach the drop-off point. They had tents and tables to set up, papers to organize, and computers to hook up. Once they had finished up on this side they would head to the other side to help. Everyone but the kitchen staff and maintenance crew were going to help check the campers in and take them over.

The last tent was finished only about ten minutes before the first buses and vans started to arrive. Then camp was bustling with people of all ages who all needed help in one way or the other.

"Excuse me, sir?" Jace turned around to see an older woman with a kid on either side of her. "Where do I drop off their medication."

"Right over there ma'am." He pointed at a blue tent a little over from where they were standing that was manned by his cousin's girlfriend who was working this summer as an intern director. "Tessa's the woman behind the table, she'll help you."

He turned back to Clary who he had been talking to before the lady had interrupted them. She had shed his hoodie and gotten ready for the day. The coffee and the last few hours had officially woken her up. Her hair was now piled on top of her hair and tied back with a white bandanna that looked so much better on her than it did on the dozens of other counselors wearing them. Same could be said about her in her purple tee.

"Sir?" She questioned, her eyes bright as she looked up at him. "Is that what you want me to call you, too?"

"Stop." He shook his head at her though his eyes were also bright. "I'm not a thirty-year-old man with a receding hairline and beer belly yet."

She laughed up at him. "Well, I wouldn't quite say you don't have a beer belly." She patted his stomach.

He caught her hand, gasping. "Are you calling me fat, sunshine?"

"No. No. I would never." She shook her head at him. "Just maybe a little pudgy."

"Pudgy?" He repeated, dumbfounded. "I'll have you know, I'm the lightest I've ever been."

She raised both of her eyebrows. "You weighed less than ten pounds at one point, you know that, right?"

He stuck his tongue out at her before releasing her hand. "The point is, I am still very much in shape."

Clary reached up to pat his cheek mockingly. "Whatever you say, hunny." Then she walked away, her very short shorts not doing much to cover the curve of her ass.

"You know that's my sister's ass you're checking out, right?" Jon came up to him not even a second later.

"Yeah." Jace didn't pull his eyes away until after he lost her in the crowd. "Your point?"

"That's disgusting, Herondale." Jon shoved his shoulder. "I don't want to watch my best friend ogle at my twin sister."

"Well get used to it, hunny." He patted his best friend's cheek just like Clary had done to him. "Because you've got a whole summer of me and I don't think my feelings are going to change any time soon."

"I suppose there are worse people she could choose."

"In case you've forgotten, we're not actually dating, you know that right?"

"You've got a whole summer to change that, Jace, what's stopping you." Then he too walked away, though Jace didn't stare at his ass as he did.

There was a lot stopping him. The fact that she lived hours away by plane. He had no idea what she felt back. He was really scared of falling even harder than before because watching her leave was hard enough as is. But maybe Jon was right, maybe it was time for him to stop letting fear rule his life.

Just, maybe not right this second.

There were other things to worry about, like the fleet of kids running up to him to say hi and catch up. That was the thing about Camp Alicante, they generally only saw the same kids. And those kids were generally the ones who applied to work there when they got older, it was a revolving door.

It took about an hour for all the counselors to get all their kids to the other side and then about another one for the remaining activity counselors to clean up the drop off site. By the time they got back to the clearing all of the campers were spread out around the camp. There were several basketball games being played on the courts, a large circle of people passing a volleyball around, and a bunch of young kids climbing on the playground. A group of counselors went to drop off all the equipment in one of the back garages while the rest of them joined the bustling camp.

Clary and Izzy joined the volleyball circle after getting about a dozen hugs from some of the younger girls. The boys were instantly hounded to start a football game in the large field by some of the older kids who knew they all played.

Luke whistled and all of camp dutifully circled around him and Jace joined the girls on one of the picnic tables around the court. He sat on the table top behind Clary as they listened to Luke do the same speech he did every summer. It was all about rules and expectations, the fun they would get up to over the summer, and how the counselors were all here for the campers.

Clary had started leaning on his leg after about three minutes and was now playing with his shoelaces while he scratched her back. She hated shoulder massages but she loved getting her back scratched and he loved getting to touch her so they were both happy.

"I'm going to have some of your counselors come up now and lead you guys in a group game," Luke's gruff voice carried over to their group as the crowd of campers started talking and moving in excitement. Jace sighed because this was his cue, Luke had come to Jon and him yesterday about being those counselors.

Clary pushed herself to her feet, stretching up on her toes. Jace watched her body as it extended, a smile coming to his face. She was the cutest person he had ever met. The bandanna looked so much better on her than it did on any of the others.

She fell back on her feet before turning around to extend him her hand.

"You sure you're not getting a little pudgy?" She teased as he took her hand. "Can't even stand up on your own anymore?"

He narrowed his eyes at her as he looked down at her, standing almost a full foot taller than her.

"I'm beginning to think this is your way of telling me I actually do need to lose weight," he said, looking down at his stomach. "Am I getting fat, Fray?"

"No, but your ego doesn't need to know that." She was grinning up at him. "Sometimes I think you need to be knocked down a peg or two."

He pouted, "What if there are no more pegs to be knocked down."

"That's when I'll stop, then." She lifted her shoulder.

"Whatever, sunshine." He had never let go of her hand and he used it to pull her in the direction of the others before dropping it. "Luke's going to throw a fit if I'm not there to explain the game."

"No one is stopping you, Herondale." She was smirking as she walked with him to where Luke was.

"That's cute, you thinking I can just ignore you like that."

She smiled and shook her head at him, stopping when they reached Izzy and Alec who weren't demonstrating. "Yeah, yeah, I'm cute, I know."

He grinned, turning so he was walking backward for a couple steps, "What happened to the modest Fray I used to know?"

"She met you." She lifted her shoulder at him, a sly grin on her face.

She and Jon shared two things. Those eyes. And that grin. It was a grin he wore often but she rarely did. It meant a lot of things he had learned from both of them over the years. Normally it meant they were up to no good. Sometimes it meant they were teasing or making fun of someone. And a few times he had seen it on Jon's face when he was flirting. Jace couldn't help hoping that was what the smile meant now.

He lifted his shoulder back at her with a grin of his own before turning so he could actually see where he was going. Jon was already standing next to Luke as he talked to the crowd so Jace slid in right next to him. He chanced a look back to look at his friends. Clary and Izzy were hanging on each other as they talked to Alec. Jace turned back to see Jon was surveying the crowd, stopping every now and then when he saw something he liked in a girl. Typical.

He wrapped his arm around Jon's shoulder, a smile on his face. He had high hopes for this summer. His eyes glanced back to Clary and they caught hers. The grin on his face widened. High hopes indeed.

..


	4. Chapter 4

_morning everyone! my sleep schedule is fucked up beyond repair and here i am, bored out of my mind in the early ams and thought, why the fuck not just post this bitch already. damn, i sound like a middle schooler who just learned how to sweat, ignore me. anywhoooooo, life sucks but i hope you are doing well. your reviews make me smile :) i hope that this story might make you smile a little too. happy thursday._

**Tuesday, June 5, 2018**

Jace swiped his card so he could change and leave for lunch with Clary right behind him. They were both on the A shift this week and would be eating, and working, on the early schedule. Jon was also on A shift but his fifteen-minute break had been right before the lunch hour so he had bounced early to beat the lines. So Jace got some quality alone time with Clary where no one was making fun of him. A gift.

"Did you even apply it once?" He asked, looking at her burnt body. She had pulled on a pair of tiny shorts over her suit and was leaning into her locker. She couldn't see him so he took the small window of opportunity to stare unashamedly at her pert ass.

"Yes, I did." She looked over her shoulder with more attitude than he would have expected and he quickly diverted his eyes, hoping she could not see how he was practically salivating as he stared. "Several times in fact. Is it really that bad?"

He gave her the look right back, determined not to be out sassed. "Sunshine, your legs are solid red, I can't even tell that they're normally white."

She threw her head back before sighing and shutting her locker, frustrated and defeated. "I swear I did, this makes no sense."

"Well it's noon o'clock which means you were supposed to reapply a couple times, did you?"

"Jace," she whined, stopping both of them just outside of the lifeguard station as she grabbed his arms. "You don't understand! You're not a ginger, you don't get it!"

"Get what?" He asked, laughing at how animated she was.

"You've got this bronzed skin that has never been burnt in its life, like what the fuck! I could reapply every twenty minutes and still end up looking like a lobster."

Jace was highly amused but also kind of worried.

He shook his head at her. "Clary, I think you're getting delusional, we've got to get some water in you."

Thankfully the pool was not too far from the dining hall because Jace was genuinely concerned about Clary, her freckles were nonexistent under her red skin.

"What are you in the mood for?" He asked as he opened the door to the facility for her.

"What did we have yesterday?" She asked, biting her bottom lip as she tried to remember.

"Pizza for lunch and then chicken tenders and french fries for dinner."

"You mean camp officially started yesterday and we haven't gone to the pasta place yet?" She asked sounding like she had offended herself. Up until the kids arrived they hadn't had a whole lot of options in the food choices they were given.

"We decided we didn't want to wear it out so fast, remember?"

"I'm weak, I'm ready." She said, leading the pair to the dwindling line. The hall had been open for at least ten minutes now and most of the rush was already sitting down with their food.

"I would argue with you if I didn't feel the same way."

She looked over her shoulder to smile brightly at him and his little regret dissipated completely.

"We feeling Alfredo or Marinara?" He asked, looking over her shoulder at the options for the day. Randomly they would throw in stuffed shells or ravioli just to mix things up. "Penne or fettuccine?"

"Obviously fettuccine alfredo, are you nuts?" She asked him, her sass full force once again.

"I didn't know if we were starting out with the best or not." He put his hands up in his defense. "I chalked you up for having more patience than this."

She ignored him and smiled at the lady behind the counter who was in charge of making sure the food containers stayed full.

"Hi, Shelly."

Jace hadn't known her name and when he looked around the place he found that he couldn't name a single person behind the counters that he hadn't known from when they were campers with him. He also couldn't imagine anyone else learning their names but Shelly seemed very happy to talk to Clary, a girl who was kinder than about 97% of the people here, if not 100.

Shelly was an older lady who probably lived in the town over and commuted to work. They needed legitimate people to be head cooks and that definitely wasn't the kids they hired on to live here as kitchen staff.

Something Jace had never really thought about before.

"Jace, broccoli or no broccoli?" Clary asked him in regards to her own bowl of pasta.

"Always broccoli," he answered immediately. She dumped a generous scoop on top of her pasta, content with his answer.

She took his plate to the table as he went to get their drinks. He got her a glass of water because he did not want her to get dehydrated on him.

"Damn, did you forget your sunscreen too?" Jace asked Jon when he made it to the table. He looked as red as his sister which was rather odd because she burned far easier than him.

"No, I put it on." He shook his head, wincing as he moved his arms, the stiff skin splitting. "I feel like I got pranked, like someone switched out my sunscreen with lotion."

"Here, here," Clary seconded, sounding a little better than her brother though Jace doubted that would last very long. When sunburnt skin got out of the sun is when it started to really kick in. Jon had been inside much longer than Clary so she had a slight advantage for the moment.

Jace would totally do that to Jon, as would Alec, but he certainly wouldn't do it if there was even a chance that he would share his sunscreen with Clary and he knew Alec wouldn't either so it wasn't them.

"Or maybe you just forgot how hot the sun could be," Izzy pointed out reasonably.

"Bitch, I live in Southern California," Clary looked at her friend, "I've been in the sun since I left here."

Izzy was silent before she waved her fork at her friend. "You have a point, darling, forget I said anything."

"What SPF were you using?" Alec asked.

"35? 50?" Jon shrugged. "They're all the same."

"And did you share bottles?" Jace asked.

Clary nodded. "Yeah, I forgot my sunscreen in the cabin and Jon let me use his."

"Fuck, who was it?" Jon asked, sitting up straight in his chair and looking around like someone was just going to stand up and scream 'it was me'. "I'm going to kill a bitch."

"Relax." Alec pushed him back in his chair. "We already know who it is, we'll kill him later."

"Hold up," Clary intervened before Jon could get a word in. "What is going on? Who are we killing?"

"Sebastian." Jace filled in the missing blanks for her. "The bitch fucked his sunscreen up."

"But why?"

"Because he didn't know you were going to use it," Jon said bitterly. "Because he still has that stupid crush on you and is afraid of us."

"We're going to kill him," Jace reassured Clary. "We just have to wait for the right time."

"Normally I would warn against it but this is just fucked up." Clary looked down at her red arms as she spoke. "Does he not know how painful being sunburnt is?"

"I'm sure he'll feel bad when he sees he also hurt you," Izzy supplied unhelpfully. "Because his already slim chances of ever getting in a bed with you just completely flew out the window."

Clary rolled her eyes but didn't say anything. Sometimes there was just nothing you could say against the truth.

"So how do we get him back?" Alec asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Push him off the ledges blindfolded," Jon suggested hopefully.

Clary shook her head. "I don't think dad wants to get sued, it's got to be somewhat of an innocent prank that can't lead to us getting in too much trouble."

"Oh?" Jace raised a brow at her. "Are you joining us this time?"

"Look at my face." She leaned in close to him and he swallowed, a very risky move Fray. "I hate being sunburned."

"Point made."

"It's literally the second day of camp," Izzy huffed, "why are you guys already messing with each other?"

They had no answer for her. The four of them all hated one another. Sebastian's dad was like the richest man in New York and he walked around the place like he was better than everyone. Last summer, sometime between the wooing of every female camper and Seelie, he had found the time to ask out their Clary, who he had always had a thing for. Since Jace had also always had a thing for her, which everyone seemed to know except his darling redhead -at least he hoped she didn't know because her knowing and not doing anything meant his feelings were not returned- Sebastian had always hated Jace. Some people thrived off competition, Sebastian hated it. Thus, he hated Jace and was a giant dick to the three boys.

Since the boys first shared a cabin during their second year of camp, they were always pranking one another. Things had escalated in their recent years and now Clary had gotten caught in the crossfire.

"Put like dye in his shampoo or something and call it a day," Clary suggested lightly through her mouthful of pasta.

"It's a start," Jon agreed, on board with the suggestion.

Jace nodded, it was a start but it was by no means the end.

"And now I have to walk all the way back to my fucking cabin to get the actual sunscreen," Clary realized, letting out a pitiful noise as she pouted.

"It's okay, I'll go with you," Jace offered.

She smiled gratefully at him, eating her last two bites of pasta before standing up with him. His plate was already long gone and he had had about twice as much as her plus a piece of garlic bread.

"See you at dinner," Clary said to the two Lightwoods before they walked to the back of the hall to the dishwashing window where buckets went around and around to take their dishes to the back. It always smelled disgusting and Jace was glad that he did not work back there.

They stopped at the dessert counter on the way out to grab a cookie before exiting the air conditioned building back into the gross heat.

It took several minutes to get to her cabin, all of which was spent with the two walking directly next to each other, knocking into one another. It became like a game and Jace accidentally knocked her on her ass when he hip-checked her mid-stride. She was laughing as he bent down to haul her to feet, profusely apologizing to her.

"Jace, I'm fine," she said for the twentieth time, bumping her shoulder into the jammed door before walking inside the cabin.

Unlike the boys who were all in one giant cabin, the girls were all separated into four smaller cabins with about ten people in each. It was empty as she led him to the back wall where her bunk was.

"Do you have aloe?" Jace asked her, taking a seat on her cotton sheets.

"Yeah," she said as she shuffled through her organized suitcase, pulling out a bag from the bottom that held her cosmetics. Jace leaned back on his hands and was surprised when he his finger hit something hard under her pillow. He pulled out her sketchbook with a smile. It was different than the one she d had the last two summers which meant that she had completed yet another one.

When he had visited her a year and a half ago they had spent an entire day going through the art in her room while Jocelyn and Jon were spending some time together. It was hard to keep art organized, as Jace realized after about five minutes into the process, so it had taken a full day and two trips to the container store to finish.

Clary liked photography, painting, and sketching, so her room was full of dozens of full sketchbooks, blank, finished, and half-finished canvases, and at least a hundred printed and edited photos. They had sorted her things into three piles; keep, garbage and for Jace.

He had taken home an envelope full of photos she had taken of them while at camp and a rolled up painting she made when she was 12 after her first time visiting New York. It was of Central Park in the rain and she thought it was childish and crude, but that was why Jace loved it so much. His friends had found all the photos he kept in his closet one day in addition to the three he had framed on his bedroom wall of each of his friends, because he wanted to hang up a picture of Clary but couldn't without looking like a creep, and the teasing hadn't stopped since. Those pictures and the painting were the only personal things he had in his room, something that did not escape his friends' notice either.

The sketchbook that he was holding now was obviously new as only the first few pages had anything on them. The first two pages were full of sketches of her friends back home and the next three or four were of camp and her friends here. Jace was drawn three times and it was insane how much she had improved over the years.

"You want to help me?" Clary asked, pulling his thoughts and eyes away from her sketchbook. Her skin was shiny from the aloe she had spread everywhere but she couldn't reach her back.

He swallowed. "Yeah, sure."

She smiled at him as she turned around, showing him her back and handing him the blue bottle. Her skin was hot under his hands and he was careful about keeping his touch light because it was obviously sensitive.

"Jeez, Fray," he said when he felt just how ridiculously hot the back of her neck was. "Do you have water in here?"

She nodded. "Why?"

"Because you're going to get dehydrated if you don't keep your fluids up," he said, capping the bottle of aloe and setting it down. "Are you sure you can go back to work, Luke would be so mad if he found out."

Luke Garroway had known Clary her whole life as he was the only person who Jocelyn kept in contact with from her life in New York. They had been best friends their whole lives, well before Jocelyn had met Valentine and long after. He had not been happy about the secrets he was forced to keep from Clary but he only saw her three or four times a year for a week or two at a time so it wasn't something he had to do very often. Jocelyn has been dating the same guy, Sam, for about six years but Clary has hope that one day Jocelyn might come to feel for Luke as he feels for her. It was oddly romantic, odd because Clary didn't really do romantic.

That being said, Luke was fiercely protective of Clary.

"I'm not looking to get you all in trouble," Clary said, reaching under her bed to grab a half-finished water bottle that made Jace purse his lips at her.

"Let's go to my room," Jace said, reaching down to grab the bottle of sunscreen and close the lid of the suitcase before standing up and pushing the case under her bed with his foot. "I've got cold ones."

Clary didn't put up a fight, instead she just threw the water bottle down on her bed and followed him to his cabin next door.

Unlike the girls, the boys had kept their fans running through the day and they both sighed in relief as they entered the makeshift room. Clary slid to the floor in front of his fan because she didn't want to get aloe on his sheets. The fan was blowing directly on her and he slid down next to her before pulling a bottle of water out from under his bed.

The boys had stolen a bucket from a storage closet and always kept it full of ice. Right now, it was full of plastic water bottles but in the future, it would also keep their illegal alcohol cold.

"Thanks," Clary said, taking the bottle and placing the cold plastic to her warm neck.

"You good?" He asked her stupidly. Clary was never one to complain and he knew that she was fairing much worse than she pretended to be.

"Yeah," she breathed, leaning sideways so that her head was resting on his shoulder.

His watch read 11:43 so they still had seventeen minutes until they needed to be back at their posts to relieve the other guards.

Jace was so angry with Sebastian. Over the summers, the boys had all had their skin and egos bruised, embarrassing photos taken, or items ruined, but no one else had ever been caught in the crossfire. Especially Clary Fray. It sucked to see someone who was so good and so kind hurting at the expense of others. Jon and him were going to have some serious words with Sebastian later.

"You sure you don't want to stay here?" Jace asked again, they had to get going if she wasn't going to stay. "Luke would understand."

Clary shook her head before pushing herself to her feet. She offered him her small hands to pull him up after her. He took them, using his legs to push himself off the ground because there was no way someone that small would ever be able to lift him up, under any condition.

"Drink first," Jace told her, leaning on his bedpost as he waited. "You can grab another one then before we go."

Clary complied, unscrewing the cap and chugging half of it in one go, spilling some of it around her mouth and down her neck. He watched the trail of water run down her throat and past her collar bone until it disappeared under her swimsuit. She was just so _pretty. _

Jordan and Bat were walking into the cabin as they were leaving, obviously in a hurry but able to drop a quick hello to the both of them. Clary liked Bat and Jordan, and she had told him that one of her cabinmates, Maia, thought they were both hot.

"I want to punch him," Jace told Clary when they spotted Sebastian. He was a lifeguard for the lake and he was sitting on a tall chair surrounded by several older camp girls. You could attend this camp until the summer after your senior year and start working at age 16. A lot of the people Jace had spend the last however many summers with were still campers but when Clary said she needed a job and money last summer, they all decided to apply to be activity counselors. So far, he had no regrets.

"And how will that help?"

"It'd be an improvement to his face, for one."

"And how do you think the girls would react to one of the trifecta being disfigured?" She teased, lightly bumping him with her shoulder.

"There's only one girl whose opinion I care about and I know she wouldn't give a shit," Jace said, watching out of the corner of his eye as her red face tinged pink.

It brought a smile to his face.

She was just so _pretty._


	5. Chapter 5

**Thursday, June 7, 2018**

Clary was panting with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. She had joined them today on their run in nothing but a tiny pair of shorts and a sports bra. Jace had to run ahead of her the whole time because he couldn't stop looking and he knew he really didn't have a right to.

"You did good, kid," Jon told her, his hand messing up her already messy hair.

Her hair had practically fallen completely out of its ponytail and was sticking to her forehead and neck with sweat. Her face was flushed and sweat clung to her bare skin, which looked a lot less red today than it had yesterday. It was pathetic how good he thought she still looked, and it made Jace feel hot in a completely different way than the heat did.

"Don't call me kid. " She slapped her brother's hand away before resting her hands on hips as her chest rose up and down heavily.

"Why not, you're so young?" Jon asked, teasing his younger sister of only twenty minutes.

"Then don't do it in such a patronizing way," Clary snapped at him, not really mad.

"We're only like forty seconds behind our last time," Jace cut through the both of them, not wanting to be in the middle of an argument with the two, no matter how playful it started out. They were siblings, and sibling arguments always got out of hand. "That's impressive Fray."

"Thanks," she smiled widely at his compliment, her brother forgotten. "I don't normally feel this winded when I've finished, though."

"You haven't run in a couple weeks," Jace reminded her, referring to the hecticness of the past few weeks for her as she tried to finalize everything before coming to New York. "Cut yourself some slack. You lose it so much faster than you gain it."

"If this is you run after a break I hate to see what you normally push," Jon cut in, starting to walk towards the cabins. They followed him, stepping out of the shade of the trees and into the sunlight. Both of their sunburns had healed quite a bit over the past two days due to the excessive use of aloe and Clary's freckles were about ten times darker than before and that much harder to avoid looking at.

"Scared of a little competition, Jonny," Clary teased before jumping on his back.

Jon almost fell over which was definitely Clary's intention by the way she was pushing him down with her body.

Jace laughed as he walked beside the two. Jon was pinching her legs and trying to throw her off as she squeezed his body with her legs and choked him with her arms. Jace always liked when they got to this point, when they were over the nine months of separation and back to being like normal brother and sister.

Their relationship was always better than most siblings, a combination of how cool the both of them were and the amount of time they had lost and still lost, but it was always nice to see them become familiar with one another again.

"Alright, I'll see you in a bit at breakfast," Clary told the two as she slid off of Jon and on her feet. They both watched her walk the distance between their cabin and hers before opening their own cabin door.

The blackout curtains Luke had gifted them did wonders to keep the light out and they struggled their way to their 'room' and then to the bathroom. Jace finished before Jon, stepping out of his stall in a towel and heading back to the room, stopping to brush his teeth quickly at the sink. He pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt before laying back down on his bed and fishing for his phone. He hadn't been able to check it the night before because he had been so exhausted when he got back from night shift.

The activity counselors were on a five-day shift where they had to work from after dinner until one in the morning when all of camp was required to have lights out. Quiet time started at midnight where campers had to head back to their cabins and wind down for bed, whether that included a shower or not. It mattered less for the counselors who was on their shift than who _wasn't. _If all of them were on different shifts they would never have nights all together. Thankfully Tessa had come through and got them all on two nights so they had three nights all together. Jace, Alec, and Clary had been on duty last night and Izzy and Jon were on tonight.

"Julian," Jace said, shaking his half-asleep friend by the shoulder after answering the text his father had sent him last night to make sure he wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere. "Breakfast in ten."

"Yeah," Jon called unhelpfully from behind Jace. "Don't make us pull you off that bed."

Julian cursed the both of them before rolling over so that he couldn't see them, like that would make his problem go away. They did pull him from his bed, tackling him to the ground. Julian and Bat were already awake and rushed to jump in. They did this often enough, and it was the only good perk about waking up to run, he had never been woken up by tackle.

It was all fun in games until someone gut hurt and Alec had to step in. Yesterday Bat had accidentally elbowed him in the face and made his nose bleed. Alec hadn't been happy and neither had Clary, who had been concerned when she saw the blood he had missed when wiping it up. She had babied him for a bit, which he had so not minded. It made Alec nervous because now he feared that Jace was going to purposefully get himself injured while wresting in order to get that treatment again.

This one ended with Jordan tapping out on Jaces back before they all let go of one another. They had to run across camp to be on time for breakfast and Jace prayed that the girls had grabbed a close table because he was starving and he wanted first dibs.

All activity counselors and members of the maintenance crew were on Breakfast A with a few of the early riser campers who were old enough to go without their camp counselor, there were maybe ten of those weirdos.

Izzy and Clary were seated at a large rectangle table with some girls Jace vaguely recognized. The bell rang as the boys walked to them and they all hopped into the line a couple of people behind them.

When Jace made it to the table with two plates full of hashbrowns, a waffle, eggs, some bacon, and an egg and cheese bagel along with his orange juice he had no choice but to head to the other side of the table than Clary. He was pleased to see that she was eating more than just her usual apple, having a waffle and some bacon also on her place. She looked up as he walked by and met his eyes, a smile spreading across her face like she couldn't even help it. It took him a moment to realize that he was already smiling without telling himself too and he ducked his head.

He sat next to Jon and some blonde girl he had never seen before.

"Hey," she smiled at him. She was pretty, looked to be in college, and was nothing at all like the redhead angel at the other end of the table.

"Hi." Jace nodded at her and the other girls around him.

"You're Jace, right?" The girl who said hi to him asked. Jace nodded. "I'm Betty."

"Hi, Betty," Jace didn't know what to do, he did not want to be rude but he also had no interest whatsoever in carrying on the conversation. "You room with Iz and Clare?"

"Yeah," Betty nodded. "You guys are all best friends, right?"

"Yep," Jon said from next to him. "Though I think everyone knows Jace wants to be a little more than friends." He had the audacity to wink at the girl and Jace elbowed him hard in the side as he fought a blush and the urge to look down the table to see if she had heard and if she had, her reaction.

"Jon, I've told you several times, it was just a one-time thing," Jace said, recovering his wits.

The girls laughed and this time Jace did glance down the table to see Clary's reaction. He felt like a young school boy acting out for attention from the girl he liked. She was smiling at him, at his joke, and he smiled back before Jon shoved him and caused their eye contact to break.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just eat your food."

Jace did as he was instructed and shoved his eggs down before they got too cold to stomach.

When breakfast was over Alec headed over to the boat dock, Izzy to the Snack Shack where she was scheduled for the day, and Jace, Jon, and Clary headed to the pool where they were all on duty. The day went by quick enough and was even slightly exciting because one kid was running on the deck and bit it. There had been a lot of tears and blood, both of which made Clary sad, but it still sped up the time. After lunch, Jace took his turn in the small concession stand that really only sold drinks and popsicles.

Clary had been on break for half of his shift and had sat next to him in the small air-conditioned room sucking on a red popsicle that made it even harder for him to resist staring at her lips as she talked.

Dinner came and their workday ended. Jace and Alec headed towards the courts for some pick-up games before it got too dark. They both had to stop when they got too sweaty and too hot.

Alec went off with some other people and Jace went out to find Clary who was nowhere in sight. After at least twenty minutes of looking for her, he headed back to his cabin to grab his phone because, with any luck, she would be near enough to her phone for the Bluetooth on her watch to work.

"Jace!" He heard someone yell his name and he turned to see Clary running up to him. "I've been looking for you forever."

That made him smile. "Same, I think I've walked around this entire camp."

"Want to steal a kayak?" She asked him, grinning mischievously.

He didn't have to think twice before nodding his head.

The two of them walked to their cabins to put their swimsuits on under their clothes before walking towards the lake. Thankfully it was almost dark and no one would be able to see them put the kayak in the water and paddle it away from the clearing.

Jace lifted a two-person kayak from the trailer and carried it to the water, making sure half of it was still on the sandy slope that led to the lake so it wouldn't float away from them while Clary grabbed two life jackets. The good thing about doing this in secret was that they wouldn't have to actually put them on, though Jace was glad that they had them with them in case anything went wrong.

When he turned around from the canoe to head back up the small hill he saw her pulling her t-shirt over her head, her bare back and legs to him. Her bottoms were high waisted and her ass spilled from the back. Great. He hadn't even considered the idea that she was going to be wearing a lot less material than her already tempting lifeguard suit. When she turned around he took in the low cut of her top that cut her chest into a large triangle with ruffled sleeves. How was it possible to look so cute and hot at the same time?

She pulled her hair from her ponytail as she smiled at him, oblivious to the horny thoughts in his head. What he wouldn't give to kiss every last freckle.

"Ready?" She asked him when his own shirt was off, a paddle in each of their hands.

"Definitely." He helped her down the hill, more for an excuse to hold her hand than anything, Clary was very capable of doing it on her own but she didn't make any comment about it.

She took the first seat and he climbed into the one behind her after pushing the boat into the water. They paddled towards the right so that the trees would shield them from the view of the camp, lest anyone looked in the direction of the lake.

"No, no," Clary was laughing, batting away his paddle. "Jace, you're going to make us spin in circles."

They had both been campers for years and were both very aware that he knew what he was doing, but they were both laughing anyway.

"I swear to God I will tip this thing if you don't stop," Clary threatened, turning around slightly to glare at him, though most glares didn't also involve a smile.

He leaned in towards her, smirking. "Bet."

Her eyes narrowed at the challenge and she was pushing herself up before he could do anything about it. When she put her weight towards one side he threw himself to the other in a poor attempt to counterbalance the two. Only he was like sixty pounds heavier than her and in his attempt to counterbalance, he just tipped the boat the opposite way and they both fell out.

He bobbed up before her and started splashing her the moment her head breached the water. She laughed as she put her hands up in a poor attempt to block the water he was splashing at her.

"Jace, stop," she laughed, not noticing how close he was getting to her.

His feet met rock and he realized they were close enough to shore that he could touch on his toes. He moved a little further in so that he could stand there flat-footed.

"That's not fair," Clary said, pouting. "You can touch but I can't."

"Come here then," Jace said, moving his arms through the water to reach her. Her hand found his arm and he guided her towards him.

"It's so pretty out here," she told him, her eyes locked on the sky above them.

"It is." He pointed at one of the constellations. "Do you remember everything I taught you?"

"Jace," she laughed and looked over at him, "everyone knows the Big Dipper."

"Sunshine." He shook his head at her, "that's the Little Dipper."

She looked back at the stars to see who was right but he kept his eyes on her. He knew his stars. Instead, he took in the curve of her lips and nose and tried to gather the nerve to do something about it. He wanted to stop looking and start touching.

"Damn," she muttered and looked back at him. "It is the Little Dipper."

"I really don't like you looking at me as you talk about a Little Dipper," he told her seriously as he pulled her in closer to him. "I much preferred the Big Dipper."

Her face was only a couple inches away from his as she laughed and he could not resist leaning forward to place a kiss to her lips. She gasped against him as he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her whole body against his while his other hand tangled into the hair at the base of her skull.

"Is this alright?" He whispered against her lips, forcing himself to pull back after only a few seconds of _finally _getting to taste her.

"Yes," she answered breathlessly before leaning back into him.

Her lips were soft as they moved against his. Her arm had wrapped around his shoulders and she was clinging to him just as tightly to him as he was clinging to her. Stars of his own were exploding behind his eyelids and his whole body was tingling.

His foot slipped from the rock he had been standing on and he broke apart from her to try and rebalance them. She was giggling softly in his ear and he could hardly think straight. Her eyes were as bright as he had ever seen them, the green so bright and deep that he felt like he was swimming in them instead of the lake.

"Was this your way of showing me you didn't have a Little Dipper?" She asked cheekily. "Because if so, I think it worked."

Jace barked out a laugh before leaning forward to place a brief kiss on one of the freckles on her neck. He had been wanting to kiss that particular one for far too long to not.

"I'm so mad about you, Clary Fray," he told her honestly, taking in the way her smile lit up her whole face and eyes. "I've been mad about you since I was like 12 and saw you and your little red braids for the first time when you stepped out of your dad's car. I've wanted to tell you for over a year but I've been so scared. You mean so much to me Fray, you always have."

She looked like she didn't know what to do for a second. He was slightly surprised when she wrapped her other arm around his shoulder and hugged him tightly, her head pressed against his own. He enveloped her in his own arms, hugging her as tightly as he dared.

"I don't think I've been mad about you for quite as long," she whispered but her mouth was so close to his ear he had no issue hearing every word. "But I'm so mad about you too Jace."

Jace was kind of glad that she couldn't see his face, he was smiling something silly.

"That's good," he whispered back as he peppered her shoulder with kisses. "Like, really really good."

Her skin felt fucking magical underneath his fingers and he was glad she didn't seem ready to push him away yet because he just wanted to hold her forever.

"You know," Jace said after a few moments of silence. "I'd be happy to show you I don't have a Little Dipper in a completely different way eventually."

Her head tipped back as she laughed loudly into the silent night. He smirked, placing a chaste kiss on her throat because he could before she dropped her chin to look at him.

"How bold of you to say, Herondale," she teased him with a smile. "I only told you I liked you like two minutes ago and you're already trying to get in my pants."

He moved his hand back to the base of her skull so that he could bring her lips towards his own, kissing her softly. He was positive she knew that he was just making a joke but he figured it could never hurt to reassure like this anyway.

"I'm terrified that a water snake is going to jump out at us," she whispered against his lips.

Jace let out another loud laugh, amused with the way she whispered it, like a snake would hear her fears and come attack her. "It's okay, I'll protect you."

They kissed again because Jace was already an addict and it hadn't even been five minutes before they swam back to the kayak that had drifted away slightly. He helped her into it, which took way too fucking long because they both kept laughing, before climbing up into his own seat.

They paddled back to the camp, being as stealthy as possible as they took it out of the water and back up to the trailer.

"Want to find a hammock?" She asked him as they walked back into camp, hand in hand.

"You don't waste any time do you, Fray?" He teased her, using their hands to tug her in the direction of the nearest one that came to mind.

"Shut up," she teased, slapping his arm lightly with her other hand even as she laughed.

There were several hammocks around the camp and the one they were heading to now was towards the edge of camp, and if it was open, they wouldn't have to be around anyone. He felt like he could cry in relief when they got near enough to see that it was indeed empty.

He climbed in the netting and waited as she pulled her shirt on before helping her climb in next to him. She tucked so perfectly in next to him as their legs intertwined and their hands rested over his heart, also connected.

"Am I dreaming?" He asked her quietly after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

"Would I still be dressed if you were dreaming?" She countered, sounding like she was mostly joking but also a little curious."

"Depends on the dream," he answered honestly, "and somehow I don't think having sex in this type of hammock would be all that enjoyable."

"A fair point," she reasoned with a smile in her voice, "I think you can conclude, then, that is not a dream."

"Well now all I'm thinking about is you being naked so I'm officially useless."

"You're the one lying here without a shirt on and your fucking eight pack on display," she laughed, "if I can do it so can you."

He bent his neck so that he could kiss her again. She made him so goddamn happy he didn't care that it was kind of an awkward angle. But she fixed that too by shifting over him so their lips were on the same plane.

"I get it now," Clary said after a few minutes as she pulled away from him half an inch. A really far half an inch.

"Get what?" Jace asked her, moving his fingers up to touch the freckles splayed across her cheekbones.

"What Kaelie said about you kissing like a god."

"Shut up," he said, rolling his eyes before catching her chin in his fingers to pull her back down to him.

Clary was sprawled almost on top of him now as she rested her head back against his chest. His arm curled all the way around him and he dropped one of his legs out of the hammock so that he could rock them back and forth a little.

"It's 12:47."

Jace blinked blearily above him. Someone was shining their phone flashlight in his eyes.

"Huh?" Jace asked, royally confused as he tried to move his hand up to block the light from his eyes only to feel a small body on top of him.

"Lights out in 13 minutes, you guys have to get back to your cabin."

Clary Fray was passed out on his chest, in a hammock, and suddenly the events of the nights flooded behind his eyelids. He had kissed her and she had kissed him back before he told her that he liked her, to which she had also said back. And then they had fallen asleep in a hammock together.

"Sorry, yeah," Jace managed to say, shifting around a little. "Thanks."

The person walked away and left the two in almost complete darkness.

"Sunshine," Jace said, shaking her shoulder lightly as he tried to rouse her awake. She groaned in her sleep and burrowed deeper in his arms. He smiled, she was so cute. "Fray, we've got to head back to our cabins."

"No," she moaned against his chest, sending vibrations through him.

"Yes," he countered with a laugh. "Clary, I will tip this hammock if you don't wake up."

She lifted her sleepy head off of his chest to glare at him and he ducked forward to kiss her softly because he could do that now. It was brief but it still caused his stomach to flutter happily and judging by the dopey smile that took over her face, she felt the same way.

"Come on," Jace said, shifting around slightly so that he could help her climb out. "We don't want to be caught out here."

Clary clumsily clamored to her feet, stretching out her whole body as she yawned. He stood up behind her and yawn-stretched too, as it was contagious, before bending down to scoop up their stuff with one hand so that he could take her hand in his other one.

He felt extremely sad when their cabins came into view, he wasn't ready to say goodbye to her yet. They slowed to a stop right outside of her door and he handed her her stuff.

"Good night," she whispered sleepily, pushing herself up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

"Hmm, goodnight Fray," he said back, smiling at the pretty sight in front of him that he could see because of the light above the cabin door.

She slipped in the cabin and he made his way to the cabin next door, grateful to see that their light was still on, unlike Clary's cabin.

"Yo, where have you been?" Jon asked him from under his blankets when Jace reached their room. "And why are you smiling like that?"

Jace hadn't even noticed he was smiling and he tried to tone it down but that was useless. "Just a good night, is all."

"A good night?" Jon questioned, sitting up in his bed to look at him. "What does that even mean?"

Jace was trying to fight the urge to jump around in circles and pump his fist in the air and was only half succeeding.

"Oh my God," Alec gasped, also sitting up in his bed, wide awake now. "Did it finally happen?"

All five guys in the room were looking at him now as he nodded.

"Shut up," Julian said, shooting up in his bed. "Are you fucking serious?"

Jace was looking at Jon as he nodded again. This was his sister after all and even though it had been talked about for the past several years, it was actually happening now.

"Err, what's going on?" Jordan asked from where he was sitting on the floor in front of the fan.

"Loverboy over here finally got the girl," Julian said, slipping off of his bed to dap him up. "You beat the friend zone, you are all of our heroes."

"Oh, congrats dude," Bat said awkwardly. "Um, with Clary?"

Jace laughed finally, because honestly, who else?

"Yeah." He nodded in Bat's direction.

"Well, what happened?" Alec demanded.

"We went kayaking," Jace said, leaning on his bedpost. "And then we kissed."

"Just the once?" Alec asked.

"That was several hours ago," Jace said with a slight shrug. "Take a guess."

"Ahh, man," Alec practically yelled, jumping from the bed to pull him into a hug. "It finally happened, I can't believe it."

"But you guys actually talked, right?" Jon asked quietly. "Like she knows this means a lot to you, right?"

Jace nodded. He knew Jon was worried about what would happen if when Jace finally grew the courage to ask her out and she didn't feel the same way. "Yeah, Jon, we talked, she knows."

"And feels the same way?" Jon asked, looking for clarification and Jace couldn't say that he blamed him.

"Yeah, she does."

And then the room erupted into a celebration as Jon sprang from his bed. Jace did end up jumping around like a middle school girl with his friends for about three minutes before the lights turned off and someone yelled at them to shut up.

"Hey," Jon said quietly one last time. "I'm really happy for you both."

"Me too," Jace said, smiling as sincerely as he could ever remember.

"You may be my best friend," Jon said seriously. "But I swear I will kick your ass if you ever hurt her."

"I would expect nothing less."

"Now go to bed, loverboy."

It was a little hard to navigate through the beds and to the bathroom by phone light to brush his teeth but he didn't think there was anything on planet earth that could dampen his mood right now.

His phone vibrated on the way back and somehow his mood lifted even higher.

_Izzy woke up the whole cabin with her screams_

_i think i broke an eardrum_

_worth it tho, for a kiss from a god himself_

Jace smiled to himself as he slid underneath his blanket.

_if i wake up tomorrow and this was all a dream, do me a favor and make the first move this time._

Three dots popped up to indicate that she was typing.

_how do you make me roll my eyes and smile at the same time?_

_just know that even if this was a dream, real-life me wouldn't mind if you just came and planted a kiss on me_

Jace's cheeks were beginning to hurt at how wide he was smiling. _because its a kiss from a god?_

_no, because it's a kiss from you_


	6. Chapter 6

_um, i wish i had a better excuse for you guys, that is to say if you guys even noticed i had not posted in who knows how long. a combination of some intense writer's block and the end of another school year, finals all that stuff, everyone knows, i just haven't been able to get anywhere. i've tried this chapter probably 15 times with no luck, like seriously, you should see my drafts, and this one is semi okay and i've just gotta move past it. shall see you guys soon hopefully with a better chapter, i really want to keep this going. thanks for all the follows, favs, and reviews, even in my absence, they mean a lot :)_

**Saturday, June 9, 2018 **

It was a bit weird at first, this thing with Clary and him. They had been friends for so long and there had been more than a few awkward moments over the last day and a half as they began to figure out how to be more. There had been a few times where one of them went to kiss the other person and ended up on their cheek or lips instead, which was a bit jarring. They bumped noses and their teeth clanked. Trying to navigate around Jon, Izzy, and Alec was some work already, like how much touching was too much touching around your friends. Jace had kissed her, like a proper one, for the first time in front of Jon this morning when they were stretching before their run and Jon had slapped him over the head.

But Jace and Clary had been best friends since they were 12 so it was easy to find the humor in their awkward moments. And both of them were just happy something was going on finally between them. As for their friends, they had had more than enough time to get used to the idea of them dating over the past few years so their expressions of annoyance were just a show. They were all happy for their friends. Especially Izzy.

When Izzy and him were alone at dinner yesterday, because Clary had been pulled to the art room and a lot of the lifeguards' shifts had been changed because of it, she had hounded him the entire time about what exactly went down, what was going through his head at the moment, and what he thought was going to happen now.

He had been ready to kill her before Clary had walked in for Dinner B and rescued him with her sunny deposition.

After their run this morning, Jace had convinced Clary to come take a nap with him in his bed after some long, separate - of course- showers. They all had the day off and the only reason they had woken up before 3 was because of their stupid football coaches and Clary's greatness to run with them even when they didn't have to. He was looking forward to the next weekend when they all had Sunday off, both with work and working out, thank you to Tessa yet again.

Until then, he had to make do with the day he was having now, which definitely was one of the best Saturdays he had ever had because of who he got to spend it with.

Clary was still asleep next to him as their nap had turned into more of a second sleep. Their cabin lights were off and the fans were on. In their tiredness, it was easy to ignore the light peeking around their window shades and Jace was willing to bet that they had slept through lunch.

Jon was sleeping on his own bunk, half of his body pretty much hanging off of it as he slumbered in oblivion. It had been a long and tiring week first week of camp, per usual, and they treasured their day off.

He fished around the floor for his phone, content to just lay there and respond to all of his forgotten text messages with one hand as he kept the other one wrapped around the sleeping angel next to him. That only lasted about ten minutes before she was opening her eyes and full body stretching, her cold toes touching his calf and making him smile.

"What time is it?" She mumbled, sounding drunk in her sleepy state.

"12:47." They hadn't missed lunch after all.

She sighed, lifting one of her hands to rub at her eyes. "I'm starving."

"Want to go to the Dining Hall?" Their only other option was the Snack Shack.

"In a minute," she mumbled, shifting slightly so that she was propped up on his chest with her arm folded underneath her chin. "I'm not ready to move yet."

He smiled, lifting up his hand that had been holding his now forgotten phone to push her hair over her shoulder so that he could see all of her pretty face. Her eyes were half lidded and she had a sleepy grin on her face as she looked at him.

"You're so pretty," he told her, running his finger down the adorable freckles on her nose. Her cheeks flushed a light pink and that made his heart want to explode a little.

She leaned forward to kiss him and his hand slipped past her delicate features to tangle in her hair. They were getting good at this. There were significantly fewer accidental nose bumps or teeth clankings. He was having completely different problems now that involved some major discomfort with his Big Dipper. She just sounded so fantastic and felt practically sinful against him, it was sensory overload.

Her eyes stayed closed even as she pulled away and he was so goddamn happy as he looked at her pretty face. He just felt so, so light.

"Okay," she said as she showed him her pretty green eyes. "I'm ready to move now."

Clary climbed over him to get off the bed and stretch before walking over to her sleeping brother. Jace heard her wake him up and ask if he wanted to get lunch with them.

Jace slid out of his own bed and stretched. The rest of his roommates, Alec included, were gone though they had all been sleeping when he had laid down to nap earlier after their run, except for Julian who had a shift at the Rec Center. He could hear the two siblings talking behind him as he rifled through his suitcase, looking for a pair of socks.

The three of them walked to the Dining Hall together and waved at Alec when they spotted him sitting next to Jordan and Bat and some other friends. There weren't any open seats so the three of them sat at the end of the table next to them, Jon and Jace on the edge with Clary sitting next to him.

"Oh shit," Clary whispered and he watched out of the corner of his eye as she covered her mouth with her hand to hide her laughter.

"What?" Jace asked, instantly alarmed. He searched around the room for what made her freak out and had the exact same reaction when he saw Sebastian sitting across the Hall with some friends.

With an insane hair job.

"Fray, what the fuck did you do?" Jace asked her, turning his head away from that monstrosity to look at the gorgeous girl next to him but she was already on her feet and walking over to the dick, probably to tell him that she was sorry if the apologetic look on her face was to say anything. Jon had caught on to their conversation, looked over at Sebastian, and was now biting his fist to keep his laughter from erupting.

The two of them watched, Jon in extreme amusement and Jace with suspicion as Clary put her hand on Sebastard's shoulder. Jace had seen Sebastian mad before and it wasn't something he wanted Clary to get caught on the receiving end of.

Jace didn't know when the two girls had managed to do all this and he wasn't sure he wanted to. Verlac's once blonde hair was now unevenly streaked with red hair dye. It looked like someone had tried to clean up a red mess with a blonde mop, only the mop was someone's head and they actually had to walk around and look like that. His girl was brilliant, there was no denying that.

Clary and Sebastard's conversation was brief, there were several smiles from both ends during it, and a few high five from some of his friends, which relieved him greatly. Jace doubted very much that would have been the case if anyone else had gone up to Verlac, Izzy included.

"Sister, you two did him dirty," Jon told her through his laughter as she slid into her seat, not bothering to look away from her masterpiece and at the distraught look on her face.

"It's not that bad," Jace tried to cheer her up. "And it'll wash out soon, right?"

Jon turned around in his chair to look at him in disbelief and was just in time to watch as Clary buried her head in her arms, visibly upset with herself.

"He's right Clary," Jon said, instead of whatever else he had been planning on saying, "and that red is certainly better than the red he caused you."

That was true. Jace still wanted to kill him for that. She had spent the first night she had gotten burned overheating in her cabin from how hot she was and the next day in pain as her skin rebelled against the burn, not to mention the dehydration is had put her through. This hair dye was harmless compared to that.

She lifted her head off of her arms, looking at both of them with sad and disbelieving eyes. "It looks awful, I'm a terrible person."

Jace put his hand on her thigh, wanting to comfort her. "No you're not, Fray, and it's really not that bad." The second line was a total lie. Not everyone could pull off red hair like his pretty red.

"He asked if this made you guys even," Clary said, sounding like she was asking the question too.

"We'll see," Jon said for Jace, sounding less amused now. "I don't think it's really an even trade."

"Yeah, but you prank each other all summer long, I'm sure you'll get him again, eventually."

Jace pursed his lips. That was true in some ways. The three of them and Sebastian, along with a few of his friends, always spent their time at camp at one another's throats, and not in a friendly way. Though no one had even been caught in the crossfires like this before, especially not someone like Clary, who meant something to both sides. Jace was sure that even Sebastian felt somewhat bad for hurting her. She was just such a kind person.

"We'll see, Sunshine," he told her, smiling a little as she slipped her hand in his. "But in the meantime, I say we just enjoy the view."

It was her turn to smile, albeit hesitantly, as she looked over at her handiwork. It really was funny. "I mean, we did a good job."

"That you did, Clare," Jon said, smiling widely at his sister. "Like honestly, how did the two of you pull that off?"

"We snuck into your cabin while everyone was at dinner and figured out which kind of shampoo he used. Then we snuck out after lights out and headed to the Walmart in town to buy a bottle of that and some hair dye. We mixed the two bottles in the parking lot before sneaking back into camp and then into your cabin to swap the two bottles."

"You mean to tell us that the two of you walked through the woods that late in the night?" Jon asked, impressed.

"More like sprinted, but yeah," Clary confirmed, laughing a little.

"And you didn't wake anyone up in their room?" Jace asked, also impressed. She shook her head and took back her hand to hold her fork. "Damn, Fray, you've got skills."

"Or, it's camp and everyone is exhausted." Clary reasoned before perking up. "Oh, it's Iz."

Jace turned to doorway to see Izzy walking in, her long black hair in a high ponytail and wearing a t-shirt and shorts, both unusual things for her.

"She must be beat," Jon said, noticing the same things. "I think I've only seen her with her hair up three times."

"Don't be so dramatic," Clary said, rolling her eyes. "She does this all the time."

Jace very much doubted that though he didn't do sleepovers with her regularly like Clary. She jumped in line at the pasta place, just as Clary and Jace had done, before walking over to their table.

"Hey guys," Iz greeted them tiredly, dropping into the seat across from Clary.

"Turn around," Clary said, skipping the typical morning greetings and tipping her head towards Verlac.

Iz turned around, caught sight of Sebastian, and spun back around, clapping her hand over her mouth as her whole face lit up in laughter.

"That is so much worse than I was expecting," Iz said, taking her hand off her mouth to look at all of them in disbelief. "Has Alec seen it?"

Jace turned towards the table next to them that he had forgotten all about as they got swept up in Sebastian's ugly hair. Alec's back was turned and unless someone else had seen it, it was very unlikely that Alec had been graced with the opportunity to see Sebastian in all his glory.

"No, I don't think so," Jace told Iz, turning back towards her, a grin overtaking his face. "Nor the rest of the table, I'm betting."

"Jace," Clary whined, putting her hand on his arm. "Don't be mean."

"Everyone at camp is going to see it sooner or later," Jace reminded her, putting his hand on hers that was holding her fork.

"Clary, girl, it's a harmless prank," Izzy said, rolling her eyes at her friend as she bit some pasta off her fork. "What did you expect to happen?"

"I don't know," Clary said, "for him to look a bit better, I suppose."

Jon snorted, and Jace bit back a grin. "Well, he must not have gotten that memo."

Izzy leaned across the table so that she could talk to the table of boys next to them. Besides Sebastian's few 'friends' and his temporary flings, there weren't a whole bunch of people who liked him at camp. It was no surprise when all of them started cackling and a few of them reached over to high five the girls. Izzy took hers proudly but Clary did so hesitantly.

"You guys coming to the Ledges with us tonight?" Their friend and fellow lifeguard Liam asked when everyone was done laughing at Verlac.

Jace looked around at his friends and they all shurgged in the 'sure' kind of way. "Yeah, after dark?"

"Course man," Liam said, "is there any other time to go?"

Such was true.

"See ya then," Jon told them, reaching up to dap a few as they all stood up from their table. Alec joined them with his empty dishes and the five of them finished their lunches together or watched as the others did in Alec's case, before heading towards the field house.

The five of them found an empty room in the basement and some rackets. Over the years, they had picked up enough of the racquetball rules to play it casually. And then eventually it just turned into the boys whipping the balls at one another and off the walls while the girls sat in the corner and rotated between talking and fending off stray balls.

They had dinner in the dining hall before changing into the suits and heading to the deserted beach and chilling in the sand, waiting for the sunset. Clary was taking some photos of them with her phone, including one of the two of them with the sunset behind them and his lips on her cheek.

He posted it on his Instagram story, a way of letting his friends back home that something was happening between the two of them that didn't involve extreme embarrassment. Jon and him hung out all the time in Brooklyn. His friends were Jace's and Jace's friends were his. Sometimes, Jace would show up places and Jon would already be there. He loved it. But, there were a few drawbacks. Jon had no problem spilling things about Jace's obsession with Clary and he knew that if he didn't say something, Jon would, and it would be very embarrassing.

"Guys!" Liam's voice came from behind them and they turned around to see him and several other guys waiting for them. "Come on!"

The five of them grinned at one another before getting up and running after the group of guys.

They all dropped their clothes at the top of the highest rock and Jace couldn't stop the laughter as he looked at Clary's 'tan' lines that were getting worse by the day.

"Jace," she whined, smiling despite herself as she looked at him.

"What?" He leaned in, smiling too, and kissing her softly.

"Oh, shit!" One of Liam's friends, Chandler said, his eyes going wide. "Since when have you two been a thing?"

"It's new," Jon said for him, wrapping his arms around both of their shoulders from behind. "Aren't they cute?"

"Shut up." Clary pushed his face away.

They moved to the edge of the rock, Jace keeping a firm hold on Clary as Jon and her had a little shoving match.

"Dang, I forgot how high it is," Clary mumbled as she looked over the edge and down at the water below. Luke had installed some lights on the path and it was bright enough to light up the water below. Campers weren't allowed to night jump but they still did it so he had figured he might as well prevent them from dying. Luke was smart like that.

"You'll be fine," Jace said, grabbing her hand. "You ready?"

She nodded.

A few people had already jumped since they arrived at the rock, Izzy included. They followed their lead.

He let go of her hand mid-jump, not wanting either of them to land weird. Jace surfaced first, wiping the water out of his face as Clary emerged from the water.

"Oh my God," she half laughed, half cried as she tipped her head back. "Oh my God, my ass."

Jace laughed loudly, reaching out for her. "Come here."

She shook her head, shaking herself out a little as she looked up at the sky.

"What's up with her?" Jon asked, swimming up to them.

"She didn't close her legs enough," Jace said, trying not to laugh for a second.

Jon tried to turn his laugh into a cough and only half succeeded.

"You good, Clare?"

"Yeah, just need a second." She sounded out of breath.

"Alright, you've got her, I'm sure."

Jon swam away and Jace helped her swim towards a rock a little aways, just so she wouldn't end up getting jumped on by someone.

"You okay?" He asked her, touching her hip lightly.

"Umhmm," she said, looking at him finally. Her green eyes were a little shiny and his stomach clenched painfully.

He lifted himself up on the rock and let her swim in between his legs, giving her the opportunity to cling to him if needed. Which she did. She folded her arms and kicked her legs back so that she was lowkey laying on the water.

Jace felt like he was living in a movie. It was the perfect temperature outside and he was with the perfect girl, in the perfect place, with his best friends.

"Hey Jace," Clary said after a few minutes, looking up at him.

"Yeah?"

She pushed herself up so that her arms were fully extended and her face was inches from his. He wrapped his arm around her and leaned in for a quick kiss.

"Go on a date with me?" She asked. "After work tomorrow?"

He blinked in surprise before smiling blindly. "Where you taking me, Fray?"

"Well, I don't have a car, so the only place I can take you is the Diner."

"So you're asking me to take you on a date?" He teased her.

"If that's what it takes, sure."

"Well, I'd be honored." He couldn't stop smiling. "Are you going to dress up for me?"

"Depends on where you're taking me."

He rested his head on her shoulder as he thought for a moment. There was nothing in this town other than a few family owned restaurants that stayed afloat purely by the fact that there was nowhere else to go. But he knew there was a bigger 'town' about twenty minutes ago with an Olive Garden. It was kind of cliche but they didn't have a whole lot of options here.

Clary's arms were beginning to shake and when he lifted his head up, he helped her up into his lap, one of her legs on either side of his hips.

"Well, there's that Olive Garden like twenty minutes away," he told her, cueing her in on his thoughts.

She tilted her head to the side as she thought about it. "I mean, who can say no to those breadsticks."

"Oh," he said, as a thought came to him. "Isn't there a Cheesecake Factory out here somewhere, am I crazy? Didn't we go there once?"

She nodded, a smile spreading across her face. "Yeah, it's in the other direction I think, in the city with the casino."

"Dang, you're right." The memory came back to him. "It's on the way home, Valentine took us there once when he was driving the three of us back to Brooklyn."

"Just so we're on the same page, if I had a car I would be the one taking you out."

"Aye, aye, captain," he said, leaning in to kiss her. The rock he had led her to was away from the lights and he doubted that anyone could see them, he could barely see her.

Her small hands tangled in his hair and he sighed into her mouth. So much of her wet, bare skin was pressed up against his and his teenage brain was going haywire.

"Not scared of water snakes anymore?" He teased her, pulling away not even an inch.

"I've learned that the water can be just as scary."

"You good now?" Jace asked her, remembering the reason they were over here in the first place.

She nodded, before leaning in to kiss him again. This time, the kiss didn't last long as both of them got soaked when Jon splashed them for kissing where he could see them. Some things would never change.


	7. Chapter 7

_Hi, i'm back! I had such high hopes for this summer and posting but as you can obviously tell by lack of updates for the last however months. Hopefully I'll be better now that I'm back at school and on a more regulated schedule. Cheers!_

**Sunday, June 10, 2018**

His cheeks ached, like _ached. _

He hadn't stopped smiling the whole night.

It had started when Clary walked into his room looking like she just stepped out of a movie in her short blue dress and white sneakers. Her ears were decorated in hoops of all sizes and three necklaces of varying length hung down the front of her dress. Her freckles were dark against her skin and the slight ruffles at the top of the dress hid her funny tan lines from her bathing suits.

She had taken her hair out of the braids she had in while working poolside and her hair hung around her face in thick waves. Her eyes were bright and her lips were stretched up into a smile.

That was when his own smile crept up.

He tried to stop smiling because it hurt and just couldn't. Every time he managed to reign his happiness in a little she would do something funny or cute and his lips would stretch right back up.

They had gone to the Club House first to sign out of camp with the promise to be back before midnight, per camp rules, though that wouldn't be a problem because they had plans to be back for, before walking through the woods towards his car in the parking lot. It had almost been two weeks since he had dropped his car off and he was excited to get to drive it once more. It hardly took any time at all for him to peel back his soft top on the jeep so that they could ride with no roof. He liked taking the doors off but he had nowhere to put them where he trusted they would stay out of harm's way.

Clary tied her hair in a ponytail and the base of her neck so that the wind wouldn't completely knot up her hair as they drove to the restaurant.

She was also in charge of the aux.

Jace normally found himself listening to harder music, songs that could be classified as warm-up songs. Her taste was much softer. Clary had a stunning voice, her naturally deeper tone coming out raspy when she sang. If all soft songs sounded like they did coming from her, he could listen to it forever.

"This is my love song to you," she sung out loud, reaching out to grab his hand as she sunk into the song. "Let every woman know I'm yours. So you can fall asleep each night, babe, and now I'm dreaming about you more."

Jace had never heard the song before but he thought he might already be in love with it, especially when _those _words spilled from _her_ lips. He kept his eyes on the road as best he could though he couldn't resist peeking over at her every now and then.

He sang along quietly to the few songs he kind of knew but mostly just listened to her sing when they weren't talking. She had asked him if she could go home with him when he went in July for a mandatory football camp. Valentine had expressed some unhappiness about the fact that she was in the same state as him but he would never get to see her. Originally, he had wanted Clary to hitch a ride home with Jon when he went home for his own football camp but it had fallen on the weekend in between camps. They always had to a ton of work fixing the camp back up and it had been a miracle Jon got Luke to agree to letting him go home. He had refused Clary's request but told her he would be willing to do it a different time.

So really, Jace couldn't think of a better turn out.

He would have lost several days over two trip homes. Now, if he played his cards right, he wouldn't lose any days.

And maybe his friends could meet her, he was positive that when they were home between the end of camp and her departure back to August, he wasn't going to want to share her.

As long as Luke agreed to it, it sounded awesome to Jace.

He hadn't even given it a moments thought when she first brought it up before saying yes.

Jace helped her out of the jeep when they got there, just as he had helped her get in. There was a large gap between the car and the ground for a girl so short. He held her hand as they walked across the parking lot and into the restaurant, letting it go to hold up the door before her.

They only had to wait about ten minutes before they were being led to the back of the restaurant where a table for two was up with menus for them.

"Hi, I'm Greg and I'll be your server," their waiter, Greg, said mere seconds after they were seated. "Can I get you started with something to drink?"

"Oh, um, can I just get a water with lemon?" Clary said, smiling politely at him after recovering from the surprise of his quickness.

"I'll have the same."

"Alright, I'll be right back with your drinks," he narrated before walking away.

They looked at their menus in silence for a couple of minutes before setting them down almost at the same time to look at one another.

"What are you getting?" She asked him, folding her hands together and tilting forward slightly so that her chin was resting on them. She smiled adorably at him.

"I think I want a mac n cheeseburger." He said, copying her position though with significantly less adorableness. "What about you?"

"I know we get it all the time but I really want their pasta."

Jace had no judgments there, they had really good pasta. The food at camp was good but it was nothing amazing.

The waiter came back and they placed their orders before looking at each other.

He grappled for something to talk about. The first thing he thought of was them. What they were and what they were going to be. But that was much too soon and much too deep. And then his mind went to what was going on in California, things they hadn't talked about while she was gone. But there wasn't much they hadn't talked about, they talked so much when they weren't together.

His friends back home always teased him for his desire to be home by 10 all the time so they could talk. The time difference sucked. She left places early and he stayed up late. It wasn't a rare occurrence for him to go to bed after 2 or 3 about once a week. Sometimes they would all jump on House Party and talk altogether, they normally tried to do that once a week.

It took a lot of work for them to keep their friendships up to date but they never complained about it.

Clary snapped her fingers in front of his face, grinning.

"You still there, Jace?"

He grinned back, leaning forward in his seat. "Now you know how we all feel when you get lose in your head."

She rolled her eyes, she never believed them about just how often she lost herself in herself. "Please, I don't do it all that much."

"Don't do it all that much?" He questioned, incredulously. "Babe, you did it yesterday and only stopped because Kaelie thought you were staring at her."

She had been quite rude about it and it had led to a fight between the ever-aggressive Izzy about her nose job, that Izzy called botched.

Clary was smiling with her teeth now.

"What?" Jace asked, self-conscious. Had he said something? Was there something in his teeth?

"Nothing," she lifted a pretty shoulder. "Just, that was the first time you've ever called me babe."

Oh.

It had just slipped out.

He had never called anyone babe before.

His flings were never consistent enough for names. Spending a few hours with a singular girl didn't normally require names or pet names.

And the only nickname he ever used, that wasn't a short form of an actual name like Jon or a last name, was Sunshine with Clary. It had started out just in the mornings, greeting her with a Good morning Sunshine, because she looked like the opposite of sunshine most mornings, but it had stuck. She liked it and he liked it.

"Well," Jace finally settled on saying, trying to ignore the excessive beating of his heart as he talked, "you're my girl, right?"

If possible, her smile got even wider. "Yeah, I'm your girl."

Her cheeks flushed slightly and he really wanted to kiss her. He hadn't kissed her at all today, a conscious decision because he regarded today as their first date and he wanted to kiss her when it was over. It had been a romantic thought, one that he really regretted now.

"Good," Jace said, confident now instead of nervous.

Her small comment had soothed a worry in him that he hadn't even been aware of. Conversation flowed easily after that. Just like before, when they were just friends talking. Because she was still one of his best friends, even if he got to hold and kiss her now.

Their food came and it took Jace forever to finish his burger because they were talking so much. It took so long that their waiter was bringing out their cheesecake before he had taken his last bite. The two of them split a piece of cheesecake, Clary only managed about two bites before it was gone. He was smiling sheepishly at her when the waiter came around.

"How is everything?"

"Good," Clary answered with a smile. Jace nodded along, too full to speak.

"Excellent, and is this one check or two?"

"One," Clary and Jace said at the same time before looking at each other and narrowing their eyes.

The waiter laughed a little. "Okay, I'll be right back with your check and maybe you two will have decided by then."

"Jace, _I_ asked _you_ out which means I'm paying," Clary said, leaving no room for argument.

He found one anyway.

"Clary, since _you_ asked_ I_ think I should pay."

Her nose wrinkled. "That doesn't even make any sense."

"Let's flip for it."

"You're only saying this because you know you don't have an argument, the loser always offers negotiations first."

He grinned in spite of himself, he had got himself a clever girl2. "Flip me for it."

She rolled her eyes but knew that he wasn't going to budge any more than she was.

"Fine," Clary said, "but when I win, no complaining."

He stretched his hand across the table. "Deal."

They shook hands and he pulled a few coins from his pocket, picking up the quarter and placing it on his thumb.

"Heads or tails?" He asked as he flicked his thumb up.

"Tails," she said confidently as he caught in his hand and flipped it on to the back of his hand.

"Loser covers tip?" He asked before he uncovered it, suddenly sure that he lost.

"Sure." She conceded, not taking her eyes off his hand.

He removed his hand and sure enough, tales up. She smiled smugly.

"Alright, sunshine." It was his turn to concede. "I've got it next time."

She smiled, no longer smugly.

It was perfect timing as the waiter strolled back up, an amused smile on his hand as he caught sight of the coin and put together what was going on.

"Alright, so who am I handing the check to?"

"That would be me," Clary said with a smile. "Thank you."

The waiter walked away as Clary opened up her purse and produced a wallet. She fingered some notes and pulled them out.

"How much am I tipping?" Jace asked, leaning over the table to look at the bill.

She turned it around so that he could see it and he winced at the price. He felt bad. He would have suggested the diner had he known she would insist to pay.

Jace was still getting several hundred dollars deposited directly into his account even though it was summer. He went in waves with his parents and their money, right now he was perfectly comfortable with taking advantage of the funds, though that was mostly because he was unbelievably hurt by what they did, even if he refused to admit it most days.

"Don't," Clary said, seeing his face and narrowing her eyes, bracing herself for an argument.

"Clary," Jace said, shoving his hand through his hair as he tried to think of a polite way to put his thoughts. "I just don't want-"

"Jace," she said, putting her small hand on his arm. "Relax, just because I don't have as much money as you doesn't mean I don't have money. I work year-round and my dad's kind of a millionaire if you didn't know."

His lips twitched.

"I know, I just don't want you to feel like you have to," Jace said, tripping over his tongue.

"Jace, I like you," Clary said plainly, cutting across him. "I really like you, and I'm in this, there's going to be plenty more dates for you to spoil the shit out of me."

He was silent as the waiter came to pick up the check. Clary was looking patiently at him, a bemused smile curling the edges of her lips.

The only response that came to his mind was to tell her he loved her. While it was true, he had known it for a long time even if the development in their relationship was still very new, he also knew that it was too much too fast.

"And you're going to be okay with that?" Jace finally asked.

"Okay with what?"

"Me spending my money on you."

"Not really, but I know it's something that you want to do so I'm going to try to be, just be patient with me."

"Okay," he said, stretching his pinkie across the table. "As long as you promise to be patient with me."

She hooked her pinkie with his. "Okay."

Jace left a generous tip on the table as they left the restaurant, her hand sliding easily into his like they had been doing it their whole lives.

"I have a bone to pick with you," Clary said as they approached his car.

"And what's that?" Jace asked, stopping outside of her door.

"I don't think you've kissed me all day."

He laughed. "Didn't think you were supposed to do that until after the date."

"I think that ships already sailed." And then she was rising to her tippy toes so that she could press her lips to his. The kiss started soft and slow before it gradually became much more. Her back was against the door and her hand was under his shirt, resting above his hip.

"Come on," Jace said, pulling back with a heavy breath. "We're already late."

The sun was already setting behind them, and they had to drive thirty minutes back to camp.

"Okay," Clary said, pressing her lips against his once more before opening the door and taking his hand. He helped her step up before going to the driver's side and starting the car.

Before he moved the car into to park his phone buzzed and Jon's name popped up on his phone.

"It's Jon," Jace said, reading the text and summarizing it. "And he's wondering if we're on our way back."

He handed her the phone as he pulled out so she could message him back that they were on their way.

When they pulled in almost thirty minutes later they walked to the Club House where they checked in before walking upstairs to one of the rooms upstairs. Jon, Magnus, Will, Jem, Tessa, and Alec were already sitting on the floor in between the rows of chairs and the projection screen.

"Hey kiddos," Will said with a large and goofy smile when they entered. "Izzy's coming back in a minute with the popcorn."

They had found some cushions and pillows to put on the floor and added a few blankets. Will was sitting with his back up against a chair with Tessa in between his legs. Jem was sprawled out and Jace wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was asleep. Alec and Magnus were sitting next to each other, like right next to each other. Not for the first time, Jace wondered if there was something going on between the two of them.

"Biscuit, that dress is so cute," Magnus said to Clary.

"Thanks," Clary smiled at him as the two of them sat down next to Jon, who was leaning against a chair like Will. Before she sat down, Clary grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her so she was like a burrito. "What did you guys decide on?"

"Umm, the Greatest Showman," Jon said, looking over tiredly at his sister. "They dragged me out of bed to come here."

Clary reached over to ruffle his hair. "Then go back to sleep."

"Will do."

Jace wrapped his arm around her and tucked her into his side, resting his head on hers before closing his own eyes.

"You tired too?" She asked him, lifting up a hand to comb through his hair.

"Yeah," he whispered.

"You haven't seen the Greatest Showman yet," Clary said as Izzy came bounding into the room with two large bowls of popcorn. "You're not allowed to sleep yet."

"But Clary," Jace begged, with extreme maturity. "I'm tired."

"Well, suck it up," she said as the movie started in the background.

He sighed. "For you."

From the very first line, Jace was hooked. And when he went to tell her that about twenty minutes in, her eyes were closed and her breathing was steady. He couldn't help but let out a breath of disbelief at her hypocrisy. When he looked to his other side, he saw that Jon was also passed out. Their mouths were both open, their heads tipped back. They looked so much like twins in this moment his smirk shifted into a genuine smile.

He had to practically carry Clary to her bed when the movie was over because she was so out of it that when he got to his own bed, he was very grateful that he didn't have to go to work until noon the next day. It really was the small things in life.


	8. Chapter 8

_i swear i updated last week and am so surprised that it's actually been three weeks. so so sorry. anyway, as always, i appreciate all the favorites, follows, and reviews. hope this chapter is decent. cheers! _

**Wednesday, June 13, 2018**

Alec was sweating as much Jace felt like he was and his face was set in sheer determination as he shuffled with him. They were playing skins vs shirts in basketball and Jace's team, skins, was down by two points. He was dripping in sweat from the exhaustion of it. This was their third game and whoever won this one, won their tournament, and both teams wanted it badly.

Jace faked a step towards Jon, who stood past the arc with the ball, before cutting towards the hoop. Jon lobbed the ball over his head and he caught it begore laying it gently off the glass. A second later, he was shoved from behind and went stumbling to the ground, barely managing to catch himself on his hands before his face would have bounced off the pavement.

"Dude what the fuck!" Jon yelled, and Jace turned to see him coming at Sebastian who was evidently the reason he was on the ground. "What was that for?"

Jon shoved him but Sebastian only smirked as he raised his hands in the air. "It was an accident."

Jace took a deep breath, taking Alec's hand to help him up, before jogging to the other side of the court to play defense. He was too tired to give Sebastian any more of his energy. They were tied now and Jace didn't need the bastard getting in his head as they tried to prevent a basket. Their benches were in charge of the score and game clock, as there was an outside scoreboard at camp. Jace hadn't even known those existed until they installed one here a couple of years ago, but he wasn't complaining, it made things a lot easier.

There was only a minute and a half of their thirty-minute period left, and a lot could happen in that amount of time.

The point guard passed it to Sebastian first and he threw up a very contested shot from the three that began their demise. Jon jumped high to get the shank before chucking it up the court to where Jordan was running for the basket. He kissed it off the glass and then they were the ones up by two.

"Let's go!" Jon yelled in excitement, high fiving Jace at half as they backed up to where they were before the ball was stolen.

They finished up by 5.

Besides a few half-hearted yells, both teams were too tired to sulk or celebrate. Jace ended up collapsing where he was on the court and laying there for several minutes. Alec was only a bit away from him so he knew he wasn't alone in this. He only got up when the teams started asking to go again. Jace considered it for a second before he caught sight of Clary walking onto the old courts several yards away from the ones they were playing on now. She was carrying her camera and talking to Izzy, who had her hair done.

"Nah," Jace said, pushing himself up from the ground. "I'm done."

The others shrugged and went about divvying the teams. Jon and Alec were still playing, both red-faced and exhausted.

Jace went to where he had set his stuff down and picked up his shirt and water bottle. He took a drink before throwing the shirt around his neck and walking over to Clary and Izzy.

She had been in the art room again and he had missed her at lunch and dinner because of shift changes. Izzy had been with her and apparently roped her into doing a photoshoot.

"Hey," Jace said as he approached, smiling at the both of them.

Clary turned to him with a wide smile, camera momentarily forgotten. "Hey."

He kissed her lightly, aware that he was a disgusting mess and that they were on a very crowded court.

"Jace," Izzy whined, stomping her foot childishly. "You're crashing my shoot."

"Just here to watch," Jace said, backing away and putting his hands in the air, before leaning against the fence.

The court they were on was old but had a fresh paint job. The colors were bright and funky, and Jace could see why they wanted to shoot here. From what he could tell, they were turning out pretty cool. Izzy was a stunning girl and she could make most things work, so that added with Clary's skill was sure to be a recipe for success.

"Ooooo," Clary said, pulling back from the camera and looking away. "Golden hour is here."

"Yesss," Izzy said, getting up from where she had been sitting on the ground. "Beach?"

"Yes ma'am," Clary said, offering her hand to Jace as they began walking. "Coming?"

He took her hand and they started walking.

When they reached the beach, golden hour was in full bloom. Izzy posed on the sand, rocks, and in the water for several minutes before Clary turned her camera to him.

"Smile," she said, taking a picture of where he was sitting on the ground with his shirt still around his neck. He was leaning back on his arms and he smiled, moving his arms when they started to tingle.

"Tilt your head," Izzy said as she stood by Clary. "No, no the other way."

He let her humor herself for another minute before he shifted and held out his hand. "Come here."

Clary peeked her face out from behind the camera. "What?"

"Come down here," he said again, smiling at her confused face. "Let Izzy take some of us."

Clary took the camera off her neck and handed it to Izzy before taking his hand and settling between his legs. He wrapped his arms around her torso and smiled at the camera.

"Clary, smile," Izzy said, laughing a little as she clicked anyways.

"Can we take these out?" Jace asked, looking away from Izzy and down at her braids.

She sighed but nodded. It took a minute to comb through the braided section so that her hair was all out but it was worth it. She slid the bandana out of her hair and tossed it to the side. Izzy let the camera rest against her stomach as she came to fluff Clary's hair up until it was sitting the way she wanted.

"Perfect," Izzy said, raising the camera back up.

"And now," Jace said after a minute, dislodging from her. "Just you."

He stood behind Izzy as they subjected Clary to the same thing she normally did to other people, though that was all voluntary.

"Damn," Jace said as the clicked through them on the camera screen. "I'm going to need these."

"Okay," Clary said, ready to move on, standing up and brushing the sand off her shorts. "Ready to get in the water, Iz?"

"Yes ma'am," she said, handing Jace the camera to hold as the two of them took off their clothes to reveal bathing suits. Once Jace had ditched his t-shirt he waded with them in the water.

They played around with a lot of different poses while Jace watched, fascinated. When it was dark enough, everything turned into silhouettes with a few adjustments Clary made to her camera's settings. Jace wanted a picture like that with two of them, too. Thankfully, Izzy had the same idea as him. She really was their relationship's biggest fan.

Clary ducked under the water so that her hair was slicked back as she turned to him. He figured he should do the same. He kissed her, the brilliant orange and pink sky in the background as Izzy repeatedly clicked the button to take the pictures.

Clary took the camera back after that, switched her settings back, and took a few more of the both of them before they headed back to shore.

"Shit," Iz said as she moved towards the rocks. "We left our towels somewhere."

"Fuck," Clary said, laughing a little. "We definitely had them when we left the cabins."

They climbed out at the rocks so they could lay down on the dock and dry off a little before heading to the sand. Clary was still taking pictures, capturing their view as well as them.

After about ten minutes they grabbed their clothes off the beach before heading to the Snack Shack where they left their towels.

"Well, I'm going to go shower," Izzy said, pulling her shirt over her bathing suit and ruffling her hair. "You coming?"

"Nah, I'm actually going to get started on these," Clary said, holding up her camera.

"Can I come with?" Jace asked, wanting to spend some time with her.

Clary led him through the Clubhouse and to the computer lab. It didn't get a whole lot of use and it came as no surprise to him that is was completely empty. They walked past the several regular desktop computers and sat down at the big Mac desktop computer.

She pulled out her flash drive, memory card, and adaptor and started setting everything up. It took a long time for everything to load but they didn't mind. They just talked and kissed until all her photos loaded.

Clary opened some of the ones of Izzy and started using an editor software on the computer she was familiar with to fix them up. There were a lot of really cool ones that she clicked through but the best ones were definitely the ones she took on the old basketball court.

"You're really good," Jace said, leaning his head on her shoulder.

"Thanks, bub," she said, bending her arm so that could run her hand through his hair as she continued clicking away, not looking away from the screen.

He watched as she skipped down towards the bottom and found the ones of him, the two of them, and just her. They both pointed at a few that they liked and she started putting them aside to fix up.

"I'm going to go to the snack shack," he said, a sudden thirst overcoming him. "Want anything?"

"Can you get me a popsicle?" She asked, turning to him with a sweet smile.

He kissed her before nodding. "What kind?"

"The red, white, and blue rocket one."

He left her with another quick kiss before walking back to the courts and towards the shack. There was still a game going on on the court he had left an hour or two ago but it seemed to be different people playing now for the most part.

"Hey, Jace!" An older counselor who had not been with them earlier yelled over to him. "Come play, we need a fifth."

He shook his head and called back. "I already did my time."

Thankfully, he was at the shop and could duck in before having to deal with whatever he was going to call back.

Julian was the counselor at the register and Jace was grateful because this meant he wasn't going to be required to make uncomfortable small talk while he got his stuff.

He stepped up behind the other person in line and waited, wishing for the first time that day he had his phone on him to pass the time. The last time he had checked his phone had been this morning when he turned his alarm off, there had been several texts in his football group message and he wasn't looking forward to having to catch up on everything he missed.

"Hey Julian," Jace said, stepping up and resting his hands on the counter. "Can I get a popcorn, a water, and a popsicle."

"Damn, slow down dude," Julian said, laughing while another counselor behind Julian started moving to the popcorn machine. "In a hurry to get back to anyone?"

Jace smiled, shaking his head and looking down. The door opened again and he glanced around to see Seelie Queen walk through the door before quickly, and hopefully casually, looking back towards Julian.

Seelie's arm pressed against his as she leaned against the counter next to him. Jace smirked as a vivid memory of Jon coming back to the room after making out with her for the first time came to his mind. Jon had run into his bedpost twice in the five minutes that followed and Jace could still remember the bruise on his forehead he wore for several days.

"What are you smiling about?" Seelie asked coyly, and Jace turned his head to see her face directly next to him.

He blinked before pushing himself off the counter so that she wasn't touching him anymore.

"He's probably thinking of his lady friend," Julian said before Jace could come up with something, handing him his popcorn and water.

Seelie's face furrowed, turning towards Julian. "Lady friend? Who?"

Julian looked over at him, wondering what to do so Jace stepped in. "Clary."

Her head whipped around towards his, much like an owls, looking shocked. "You and Clary? Since when?"

"About a week," Jace said, wondering where his popsicle was so he could get back to her. "Are you guys out of popsicles?"

"Oh, yeah," Julian said, smacking his hand on the counter and turning towards the freezer. "What kind, again?"

"Uh, the rocket one," Jace said, hoping Julian knew what one he was talking about and was grateful when he saw the package Julian held up.

"Your total was 2.50, I'll just charge it?" Julian said hesitantly, looking at him for confirmation after handing him the popsicle.

"Yeah, that'd be great."

"Alright, then you're all set."

"Thanks, Julian."

Jace walked out of the shop and towards the Clubhouse, relieved to be out of there. The whole trifecta thing was playing in his head and he was not ready to be confronted with that yet, maybe ever.

Clary was still sitting at her computer when he reached the room, though half of the screen now had Simon's face on it via facetime.

"Thank you," Clary said brightly as she took the popsicle from him with a thankful smile.

Simon eyed him as he slung his arm around the back of her chair, not being possessive whatsoever, and took a sip of his water. He sat in silence, munching on his popcorn, for a bit while Clary continued to sift through photos and talk to her friend.

"Find any cool ones?" He asked after a while and there was a break in their conversation.

"A couple," she said around her popsicle which he was pointedly not looking at because she was hard enough to handle without the popsicle. "Look at this one of you."

She pulled up a picture of him sitting on the sand, his arms sitting loosely on his raised knees. He was laughing and he looked so happy, his stomach rolled in his laughter. The love in his eyes was apparent to him as he looked above the camera at him and he wondered if she could see it too.

"Damn," Jace said, dropping his head on to her shoulder. "Not bad, sunshine."

"I emailed it to myself and when I get back to my cabin I'm going to make it my new lock screen."

He dropped a kiss to her shoulder and smirked as Simon rolled his eyes on the side of the screen. The two really didn't get along. All it took was about an hour of being together to realize that the other also liked Clary. It was different than Sebastian and him both liking Clary, Sebastian and her were not friends, she did not spend the majority of her life with him like she did Simon. Jace had attempted to be civil but then Simon had something stupid and that had ended.

"Oooo, look at this one of Izzy," Clary said clicking on a different image. "This is porn, like she looks so good."

Izzy was on her hands and knees on the beach and crawling to Clary. Jace could see the picture ahead of it and he knew she burst out laughing only a second after Clary snapped the pic. But for one split second, Izzy looked like she belonged on a Playboy magazine.

"You've got some serious talent, " he kissed the side of her face, "I think you give your subjects too much of the credit. "

Her face flushed a little.

"I mean it helps to have photogenic subjects."

Jace snorted. "Please, stop being so humble all the time. Just take the compliment, I dare you."

Her eyes narrowed at him and he could see her mind reeling with possibilities of what to do. He leaned in so their noses were right next to each other, his face pretty much demanding her to challenge him.

"No," she finally said defiantly.

His grin only got wider. "Fine, if anyone can do it then I'll just have rat-face do it when I'm in Cali next."

"Don't call him rat-face." Clary said angrily at the same time Simon asked, "You're coming here?"

Jace paid him no mind as he took in the anger in his girl's eyes. Her eyes were burning, and her mouth, stained with her now finished popsicle, was pursed. Her normally soft features were uncharacteristically sharp and he really wanted to kiss her.

"Why not?"

"Because no one likes a bully," she told him. Her words slightly surprised him and he could feel his smirk fall a little.

"He hates me as much as I hate him," he defended himself, suddenly serious. "And he's just as mean to me."

Clary rolled her eyes, saying a quick goodbye to a smirking Simon before hanging up. The two of them sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes while Clary continued to click around before he finally figured out what he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry that I called him rat-face but I meant what I said, he is just as mean to me, I'm not a bully."

"I know you're not," she said, looking apologetic. "And I know it goes both ways, I'm sorry for saying that you were a bully."

"That's okay," he said, just relieved that the silence was gone.

She leaned over to kiss him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and sinking into him. They sat like that for several minutes, just kissing and smiling before she pulled away.

"I've just got to send some of these to my email and then I want to take a shower and go to bed," she said, kissing him one last time.

"Want to spend the night with me?" He asked, not wanting to say goodbye to her for the night.

"We have our cabin checks tomorrow," she said, smiling sadly. "And you know what Iz leaves in her wake."

He nodded, remembering the state of her room back home. Her clothes were piled everywhere. And he had also seen Clary's room, she was no better.

"Sure, blame Izzy."

Clary smiled sheepishly. "My side is really not that bad, it's mostly Iz."

"If you say so."

It took her about ten minutes to get all the edited pictures sent out in emails or saved on her flash drive. She promised to send some of their photos to Jace when she got back to her cabin. It was almost midnight as they walked across campus and towards their homes for the summer and there were a lot of other people making their way to their cabins.

"Goodnight," she said when they reached her cabin, rising up kiss him goodbye.

"See you tomorrow, Fray."

"Bye."

He walked the few feet to his own cabin and then to his room which was miraculously empty. After brushing his teeth and deciding he didn't need another shower, he laid down on his bed and passed out, his limbs heavy in their tiredness. He was so out of it that not even his other roommates or cabinmates could wake him up as they came in, even Jon who ran into Jace's bedpost in the dark and swore profusely as he rubbed his aching forehead. Jace about pissed himself when he woke up the next morning for their run and saw Jon's bruise for the first time.

Jace was humbled not even five minutes later when Clary showed up in her running shorts and he ran into a tree because he was so distracted. Karma really was a bitch sometimes. Or in his case, a low hanging tree branch.


	9. Chapter 9

_uh, sorry :) hope your lives are all well_

**Saturday, June 16, 2019**

Jace and Clary were laying in her bed, kissing fiercely. They had gone back to her empty room after their shifts to kill time before the torch tonight. After dozing for a while they had started talking. First about light things and then about more serious topics. Like sex.

It had been awkward at first. First times were never as glorious or magical as they were made out to be in movies. But talking about it and being on the same page was important for a working, functional relationship. So they had both sucked up their nerves and uncomfortableness for the talk.

Clary was still a virgin, Jace was not.

She had had one boyfriend, while Jace had just a multitude of flings.

It had hurt him at first to hear about him, as they had just dated this past school year. But then he had reasoned with himself, it wasn't like he told her about all of the girls he had been seeing. And then she had explained to him that the only reason she had agreed to go out with him was in the hopes that she could think of someone other than Jace. She broke up with him after a month and half because it wasn't fair to anyone involved, and then she really knew how serious her feelings for Jace were.

That had made sense to him, he had gone through all those emotions at one point. And since her feelings for him developed much later than his for hers, her phases of denial and acceptance also happened much later, though thankfully much quicker.

Clary had been on the giving and receiving end of handjobs, but had only ever given oral sex, not experienced it herself. Jace had plenty of experience in those departments and he had to conceal his glee upon hearing that he could be her first for something else, he wanted to be as many of those as he could. While she may not be his first for anything sexual, she was going to be his first girlfriend, and to him, that was bigger than anything else. He was going to share his life with her in a way that he had never done with anyone else.

He had also apologized for not waiting for her sooner and when she said brushed off his apology, saying that it was a good thing that at least one of them would know what they were doing he, he denied that. They would have figured it out together.

Clary had also found out that he had not fooled around with anyone in over a year, not since he had visited her in California. Which led them to now, where it seemed like they just couldn't get close enough to one another.

Jace wasn't ready to have sex with her, not for a while. Not while they were at camp in their narrow beds without the guarantee of privacy. Clary had agreed, saying she wasn't ready for that step either. But they had both agreed that they were ready to try other things.

His shirt had been off since he first came into the room, slipping out of it and his shoes before climbing into her bed for their brief nap. Since they had started kissing, she had also lost her shirt and was now straddling him in nothing but her sports bra.

And she looked ridiculously hot on top of him, her hair out of its usual braids and flowing around her. One of his hands was tangled up in the mess while the other was finally getting to touch her ass.

They were both grinding into one another and Jace's shorts had never felt so uncomfortable in his life.

He about shot out of his skin when one of her hands slipped under his waistband to grip his cock. Her hand was small and soft, much different than his own hand, which had been the only source of his relief for some time now.

"Clary," he panted, his hand digging into the soft flesh of her ass at the sensation.

The grinding had felt more than good, but this new step was causing his stomach to tighten in anticipation. She slid a little to the side, allowing her to jack him off more comfortably, while her mouth dropped to the junction of his neck.

Maybe it was because it had been so long, or because it felt so good, or maybe it was because it was her, but he finished ridiculously quickly, cumming on his own stomach. He laid there with his arm over his eyes as he tried to catch his breath while Clary climbed over him. His body was too boneless to stop her and a minute later she was back with a wet cloth to clean off his stomach.

He would been embarrassed if she didn't drop the rag after she was done to lay across him, propping her head up on her arm.

"You look smug," he said when he finally opened his eyes to see her.

"Well yeah," she said, lifting one of her bare shoulders. "You would be too if it was me."

There was no denying that. If he ever made her feel like she made him feel now, his ego would shoot through to the roof.

"What time is it?" He asked, tucking his arm behind his head as he looked at her.

"Um," she said, looking around for a phone. She reached off the bed, relying on his arm to keep her from falling off and pulled up his phone. "It's- oh, your mom called you twenty three minutes ago."

He raised an eyebrow, taking the phone from her to see for himself. It had been over two weeks since he had from them. Jon's dad called them twice a week, Clary's mom and her talked almost every day, even the Lightwood's parents managed to call them once a week.

So it was natural instinct to think something was wrong and called her back.

"Hello, Jace?" His mom answered after the first ring.

"Yeah mom?"

"Your coach called," she said, skipping all customary introductions. "Says that he's been getting contacted by a lot of colleges and they want to come out see you."

"Why didn't he call me?" Jace asked, instantly annoyed at his coach. He was such a kiss up. His coach was no stranger to him and his relationship with his parents. Clary laid her head on his chest, tracing designs over his heart with her fingertip.

"Because we're your parents," Celine said like it smoothed everything over. "Now, can you come home sometime next weekend."

"No, mother, I just can't leave work," Jace said impatiently. This wasn't the first time they had this argument. "I'm coming home July 4-8 for camp, coach already knows this, have him set something up for me then."

"He thinks that it might be too late, come home next weekend."

"Luke already graciously gave me four days off for camp, I can't ask him for time. He hires a certain amount of people for a reason, it's out of my control mother."

She sighed heavily. "Jonathan, this is your future, it's much more important than some camp, you know this. There is no need for you to work at all, let alone hours away."

He moved the hand from behind his head to Clary's head. This was his future too.

"I'm going to say this one more time," Jace said with as much politeness as he could offer. "I talked to coach before I left and we agreed on everything. I'm coming home for one camp and I will be back for the first day of mandatory practice. It is against OSSHA laws to punish me for missing practices out of season or to force me to come to practice. I'm doing the workouts he mandated, I'm playing regularly with Jon and the guys. We agreed that all this was fine, I'm not going back on my word and there is no reason why that he should."

His rant was met with silence. He could imagine his mother trying to keep her cool. "I will be talking to your father about this."

"And I will give him the same answer."

"I'm very disappointed in you."

"Well, what's new," Jace said before hanging up. Clary looked up at him, her eyes betraying her sadness for him. "Don't look at me like that."

"I'm sorry, I can't help it," she said, scooting up her body. "I heard what she said."

"Which part?" He asked, wrapping his arm around her body and holding her tightly against him.

"Well, the whole thing," Clary admitted. "But particularly when she said you disappointed her."

He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing his face with his hand. "She tells me that all the time."

"Well your mom's a fucking idiot," she said so fiercely that made it smile.

"Well what you think of me matters to me much more than what my parents think," he kissed her gently. "Thank you."

"So, did we ever figure out what time it is?" She asked, sitting up and reaching off the bed for her discarded tank top. He took the moment to watch her, sitting in between his legs in her small black bra with her hair cascading down her back.

"You're so beautiful," he told her, smiling when her cheeks pinkened. He sat up, kissing her deeply as he wrapped an arm around her now clothed torso.

The door banged open and he heard Izzy before he saw her as he was still wrapped up in kissing Clary. "Well, hello there, we've been looking all over for you."

Jace turned rested his forehead on Clary's shoulder for a moment before turning to the door. Behind Izzy were two of their other roommates, Maia and Layla? Linda? He hadn't really paid attention when she was introduced.

"What's up?" Clary asked, her voice steady despite her flushed skin.

"It's almost 8, we need to head over," Izzy said, walking around the beds to her own and riffling through her suitcase.

"Ahh," Jace said, pulling himself away from Clary and climbing off her bed. He found his shirt hanging on the bed where he left it and pulled it on. "Will I just meet you over there?"

Clary nodded, leaning in at the same time as him for one last kiss before he left their cabin, ignoring Izzy's smug look. Clary was about to get hounded by those girls about everything that just went down. He trusted her to at least paint him in a good picture if she said anything.

It made him happy to be the person they asked about, even if they were talking about potentially embarrassing things. He trusted her, knew that if she were to say anything personal it would be to Izzy only.

Alec was in their room when he got there, passed out on his bed.

Jace decided to nicely wake him up because he knew that Alec would nicely wake him up, this wasn't Jon or Julien, or even Jordan or Bat.

He shook him by the shoulder, smiling to himself at Alec's grogginess. "You ready to go get stoned?"

Alec groaned, rubbing his eyes. "No. Jon woke me up a few minutes ago, I must have fallen back asleep."

Jace pulled out the bucket full of ice from under his bed and found it empty which meant that Jon had already transported their stash of alcohol to the woods.

"Have you seen my pen?" Alec asked, sitting up now as he started sorting through his bag.

"No, who was the last person to use it?" Jace asked, glancing around his own immaculate area.

"Nevermind, I found it." Alec held up his dab pen with two fingers for him to see.

"Heaven forbid you'd have to hang out with us sober," Jace teased, opening his own suitcase to grab one of his hoodies for when it got colder later.

"I spend all day with spoiled, rich brats," he mumbled, his normal grouchiness magnified by his lack of sleep. "Let me get high in peace, please."

"Yes sir," Jace said, holding his hands up in defense. "You will hear no more complaints from me."

"I'm running low," Alec said, ignoring him as he inspected his pen. "Were you planning on taking a hit tonight?"

He shook his head. "I don't want to make Clary uncomfortable."

Alec nodded, looking like he was considering that reminder for himself. Her mom had dated an asshole when Clary when was a child who used to spend his time split between getting high and abusing his girlfriend and her kid. The first and last time he had ever laid his hands on Clary had left her with a scar right above her eyebrow. Her mom had taken Clary away that night and the two had been on their own for several years before they met Jocelyn's present-day boyfriend, Sam, who Clary actually really liked.

But Clary had never smoked anything because of it and since Jace wasn't all that into it anyway, he never did it around her. Alec was a bit more addicted than he was and it wasn't like Clary ever asked him not to do it. If she had, Jace was sure Alec would never do it around her again.

"You ready?" Alec asked, now wearing a light jacket.

The two of them walked out of the cabin and to the lake. The sun was setting and it was getting harder to see. Jace was sure Luke knew that this place existed but nothing bad had ever happened and since no one had ever been caught, he had never said anything.

It was a bit of a hike. They had to walk around a section of the lake to a barely noticeable path. The path was long and at times, barely a path at all, but they had been there enough times to know where they were going. Someone had painted purple x's every twenty feet along the way so if they ever got lost, they would know.

The path opened up suddenly, revealing a large clearing. Over the many years that this place had been in use, three picnic tables, a bunch of torches, and a fire pit had been brought in. There were already about two dozen people there, including Will, Magnus, Jem, and Tessa. They ate together sometimes and hung out on an occasional night but Jace hadn't seen all that much of them. Jace waved at them but didn't go over there, he was sure there would be plenty of time for that later.

Jon, Jordan, Bat, Julian, and Emma were sitting at a picnic table, drinking from their cans of beer. Alec went over to Magnus and Jem, flashing his pen at them while Jace headed over to his own friends.

Julian handed him a beer once Jace was seated next to him. Jace used the end of the table to pry the cap off before starting to drink it. He was about halfway done with his Corona when the girls appeared with backpacks on their shoulders. Jace wasn't sure what they brought, the boys were in charge of the alcohol. He kept his eyes on Clary who had smiled at him but not come over. They waved over Tessa and told her something that made her excited. From their bags, they pulled out strings of lights. The bulbs were large and he could see a few battery packs.

"Oh, sick," Emma said, kissing Julian on his cheek before getting up and joining them.

They talked for several more minutes while the boys watched, all confused about what was taking them so long.

"Jace," Clary called, waving him over.

He got up obediently and went to her, his hand falling into place on her back as he leaned in to hear her.

"Okay, so we are going to wrap these lights around some trees and across some but we want them to be high."

"So you need me to hang them?" Jace asked, trying to follow.

"No, higher," she said, shaking her head. "Do you think you'd be able to carry me on your shoulders?"

He raised an eyebrow at her before nodding. "Sure, sunshine."

Clary's responding smile almost knocked him off his feet. "You're the best, thank you."

"I'm just putting you on my shoulders," Jace said, feeling like her praise wasn't really deserved.

"Exactly, thank you." She pushed herself up by her toes to kiss him before pulling back and crinkling her nose. "God, I hate beer."

He laughed. They had picked up several Mike's Harders with her in mind.

They got her on his shoulders and he was glad he had had only one drink because he felt really top-heavy. His hands splayed over her thighs, keeping her securely in place as he walked to wherever they told him. It took several minutes just for the first strand and they had to make sure that the battery packs were low enough to be turned on. They didn't turn them on until they were all hung up and Clary was back safely on the ground.

There was no denying how cool it looked. They had looped them around the few trees in the clearing and then from tree to tree. It was just on the trees around the fire pit so it created a sort of ring around it.

To celebrate their hard work being done, all of the girls shotgunned a beer, even Clary. And then the drinking never stopped. Jace was feeling very loose, an easy smile on his face as they sat on one of the fallen trees someone had dragged by the fire. Clary was sitting on the ground in front of him, drinking a Mike's and laughing at all of Magnus's stories.

Everyone who meant anything to him was around him listening, except for Izzy who was with a guy named Charles making out in the woods.

After about ten minutes Izzy came running out of the woods and up to Clary. "Clary, Clary, let's go skinny dipping in the lake."

It was a sign of how drunk Clary was that she agreed instantly, stumbling to her feet. Jace latched on to her hand. "Clary, are you sure?"

She nodded, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol and her eyes glassy. "Are you coming?"

Jace sighed as he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly.

The girls led him through the path, running and giggling. There were a few others around him but he wasn't paying attention to anything other than where he was putting his feet. Clary's hand was clasped tightly in his hand and if he went down, so would she.

When they reached the lake the others started stripping. He tried not to look too much at Clary, who had ditched everything but her underwear. She was waiting for him to follow suit and he made quick work of stepping out of everything but his underwear. He tried to keep his eyes off of Clary and any of the other girls, forcing himself to look at the other two guys with them and the sky.

Jace was doing just fine until Clary hugged him from behind, pressing her bare chest against his back. He wound one of his arms behind him and around her. Her lips were pressing light kisses across his shoulders and he had to pull away before his excitement became too noticeable.

Only now he was staring at her straight on. She was a goddamn vision in the moonlight with her hair curling down her chest and around her shoulders.

"You ready?" He asked, his voice strained as he forced his eyes up to her flushed face. Her eyes were twinkling, she knew everything that she was doing to him, drunk or not.

They jumped off the rocks and into the water joining the rest of their friends who had already jumped. Izzy was on them in a second, splashing them and laughing loudly, completely free and happy. Clary and Jace tagged up against her, drowning her and making her swim away.

Clary swam up behind him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She kissed the side of his face before resting her chin on her arm.

"You see any stars?" Jace asked her, tipping his head back as he tried to distract himself from how glorious she felt with her wet skin pressed against him.

"Lots of them," she said, sounding amused. "I don't think I see the big dipper, though."

"Ouch," he said, turning his head to kiss the bottom of her jaw.

"Little dipper on the other hand, definitely."

He slung her around his body so that he could see her face. She was grinning cheekily at him before she kissed him, wrapping her arm around him even tighter.

"I always see stars when I'm with you," he told her when they had parted, one of his hands squeezing her thigh.

"Is this going to be our thing?" she asked him, water droplets dripping distractingly down her perfect face. "Stars?"

Jace shrugged. "I've always had a thing for constellations and you, so I guess it's only fitting."

"If I had Jon's last name my name would mean morning star." Jace hadn't known that.

"It seems we're just destined to be together, then."

"Can you see stars from your house in Brooklyn?" She asked him.

"No," he shook his head. "At least not like this."

"Would your parents be mad if we painted your ceiling?"

He blinked.

"Probably but they don't really have a say on what goes on in my room, though they'll probably paint it back the moment I leave long enough to do so."

"Well, then I have a project for the two of us in August, because I know I'm going to be staring at the sky all the time when I'm back in Cali and I'd like to imagine that you are too."

"And you don't think you can be romantic."

"Not with words, no," she kissed him again, "but I am an artist."

An artist she had to be, because how else could someone explain how she makes his life so unbelievably beautiful? To subdue the part of him that wanted to tell her loved her, he just kept kissing her, keeping her tight against him under the moonlight. And for the moment it was enough.


	10. Chapter 10

_hi there, sorry :) there's a lot of dialogue in this one, so sorry :)_

**Friday, June 25, 2018**

Jace was finding it hard to be rational with himself. Logically, he knew nothing was going on, but his feelings for Clary had never been logical, so why would they be now?

Clary and him had separated after dinner. Originally, they had been headed to play a two-on-two volleyball tournament their friend Jack was orchestrating but then they had run into the guys who asked him to join their football match. He turned them down, but they had persisted so much that Clary had agreed for him, assuring him that it was fine and even saying something snarky like she could probably find someone better than him anyway.

It had been a fun game, despite how relaxed they were forced to play. Jace and Jon had genuine futures in the game and everyone knew that, they were not going to take any chances at a career-ending injury at summer camp. So, the two of them played quarterbacks and followed the two-hand touch rules in football with no blitzing.

When they had tried to get another game going, Jace had bowed out to go see Clary play as it wasn't something he normally got to see. He had reached the courts in high spirits but quickly became irritated when he saw Sebastian playing with her.

Someone better than him anyway.

He kept his eye on the pair while he walked around the court to where Izzy was sitting on the wall of rocks built into the grassy hill.

"He's such a prick," Izzy said almost as soon as he sat down.

"Why?" Jace asked, hoping she would tell him everything that had transpired between the two, as childish as it sounded.

"Jack offered to be her partner but Sebastian cut in and forced her to play with him. You know Clary, she can't say no."

Clary made a spectacular dive for a ball but just missed it. Sebastian gave him her hand to help her up, his hand lingering on hers for a painful amount of time.

Neither one of them were doing anything wrong, and Jace knew that, he couldn't even explain why he was feeling so irritated right now. He was irritated at Clary for letting him be her partner knowing that he had a thing for her and wasn't a good guy. He was irritated with Sebastian for being such an asshat. And mostly, he was irritated at himself for being irritated in the first place.

"Why didn't you play?" Jace asked.

"Because I worked as a coach here earlier today and already showered," she said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.

That made enough sense. Sand was a bitch.

"What round is this?"

"Semis."

Jace whistled. "And how many teams were there."

"They capped it at twenty-four," Izzy said, her eyes glued on her friend. "And they won the buy, so this is their third match."

He had to begrudgingly admit that they played really well together. They won by seven points, high fiving one another before stepping off the court. They played the next match's winner in the Championship so they had a match to catch their breath. Originally, they had been using two courts but now they were just on one so the other could be used by people not in the tournament.

Clary headed over to them, smiling at him when she saw him, and unfortunately, Sebastian was following her. They both hopped up on the wall, Clary next to Jace and Sebastian on her other side.

"How was football?" She asked him as she unscrewed her water bottle.

"Jon's team won," he admitted with a small smile. "But no one died so I can't really complain."

"That's good, that's good," she said, chugging the rest of her bottle before laying back on the hill. Jace couldn't help his smile from spreading.

"Hey, you know that's not good for you," he reminded her, leaning back so he was resting on his forearm next to her.

She grunted.

He kissed her on the cheek before sitting up and pulling her leg onto his lap. As he watched the game, his hands worked up and down her leg, massaging her sore muscles, keeping it up even after she sat up. Her body sagged into his and she rested her head against his as she watched the competition.

Jack was still in it with his partner, a younger boy who was quite good. Jace would place his bets on them. The other team consisted of two immensely talented girls but they just couldn't compete with them at the net, it was too high for them to jump in the sand.

"Want to pass the ball around," Sebastian asked her as the match crept on. "We'll be on soon and I feel my self stiffening."

"Yeah, sure," Clary said, sounding upbeat despite how obviously tired she was.

"Good luck," he mumbled after she kissed him.

"Thanks, I think we'll need it."

Then she was gone again, leaving Jace alone with Izzy. The crowd around the court had really filled up. Jon stumbled in, taking a seat next to Jace.

"I blame you," Jace said as soon as he was seated.

"For what?"

"For that." Jace pointed to where Clary and Sebastian were warming up.

Jon snorted. "You agreed to play, that's on you."

"He's good," Jace said stupidly. They were both watching the pair warm-up instead of the game at hand. Begrudgingly, Jace had to admit that Sebastian had a lot more control than him. Jace was athletic and he generally excelled at whatever he tried. Since volleyball was something Clary loved they had played a lot over the years and Jace had turned into a solid player over the years, but while he could really get a hold of the ball sometimes, it wasn't like Sebastian.

"Jack is better," Jon countered, now watching Jack and his partner.

"He's better than just about everyone," Izzy cut in.

"Not Clary," Jace and Jon both said at the same time.

"Well that's not true," and then she hastily added, "I mean, she can't compete with him at the net." Both boys were glaring at her now.

"She doesn't need to," Jon argued before Jace could. "She can't block him but she doesn't need to, not when she can read the play and pass as well as she does."

"And she doesn't have to worry about him so much at the net right now, his partner is not as good and it's pushing his game back," Jace added.

"Jeez," Iz said, holding her hands up. "I meant no offense, I just meant that in a real game of volleyball, he's some real competition."

"Who is some real competition?" Clary asked, and Jace jumped slightly as he hadn't heard her approach him. She smiled at him, leaning in between his legs to wrap her arms around his torso. He wrapped his own arms around her and leaned into her, ignoring her partner who was chatting with the people next to them.

"Jack," Izzy filled in for her. "The boys think you're invincible, I was just reminding them that you're not the only superstar here."

"And we were just reminding her that you're the best," Jon cut in, reaching in to flick his sister's head.

Clary shrugged, her eyes on the court. Jack and his partner had just won, pretty handily.

"Good thing it's just a friendly game that doesn't matter, then," Clary said at last, pulling away from him and smiling cheerily. "Are you ready Sebastian?"

He turned at her voice, nodding as he hastily said goodbye to his friends. They wished Clary good luck, and Jace snuck one last kiss from her, for good luck, before they watched her walk on to the court.

"I love watching her play," Jon confessed, sounding kind of sad. "I wish I could see her play at school."

"Me too," Izzy and Jace said at the same time, the same melancholy tone in their voices.

Jack and his partner took a few minutes to drink some water and strategize while Sebastian and Clary passed a ball around.

"Do you think Clary will move to New York?" Izzy asked mindlessly as they watched. Jace felt the familiar clench in his gut he always did when this got brought up. It made him sick.

"I mean after school, she just might want to stay here," Jon supplied, equally as carefree.

Jace blinked. "Wait, she's coming to school here?"

Both of them looked over at him, surprised looks mirrored on their faces. "You haven't talked about that?" Jon asked.

"It's not something I like to think about all that much," Jace confessed, feeling kind of sick. "Where is she thinking of going?"

"Maybe you two should talk about this first," Izzy said tentatively. "I don't think Jon or I should be the one to answer all your questions."

On one hand yes, but on another Jace wanted to know everything. "Just answer me this, is she only looking at schools in New York?"

"Jace," Jon said firmly, looking back at the game. "We're not telling you anything."

Jace had one season left in football but he already offers from a bunch of big schools all over America. There were scouts at every one of his games and a lot of his practices too. It wasn't a smart thing to do, to come here over the summer, but Jace needed to. It was one of the only times he felt himself, and these couple of months is what got him through the rest of the year.

Currently, his front runner for colleges was Penn State, but he wasn't sure of anything. He had offers from Syracuse, which was in-state, as well as his pick of any smaller school in New York, he even had offers from some Ivy Leagues. Not to mention d1 schools all over the east coast and the mid-west.

He knew Clary was pretty freaking brilliant. She did decently well academically, but that wasn't where her talent shone. Her art was something to marvel at, even he knew that. She had shown him some of her newer works and he had been knocked speechless from a few, and that had been over the quality on facetime. While at camp, she just had her sketchbook, some fancy expensive markers and pencils, as well as whatever she could scrounge up in the art room and she still did things that blew his mind. Just this week she had painted him, using only the color gold, had even given him angel wings and everything. Jace knew exactly how rare his girlfriend's talent was, he wasn't going to underestimate her potential.

Watching her now, he was struck with how unfair everything was. He had this brilliant amazing girl, who was creative, intelligent, fit, and downright stunning, and he didn't even really have her. It was like he was only borrowing her for some time before the inevitable goodbye came that lasted forever.

Their endgame was confusing. Clary had a life in New York and California, but mostly California. That's where her friends and mom were, all she had here was a father who abandoned her, her twin brother she went 12 years without knowing existed, and some friends she saw a fraction of every year.

Not for the first time, Jace was reminded of how much more they needed her than she needed them.

Jon and her were blood, they had a reason to stay connected forever and the means. You could keep a relationship with your sibling through short visits and phone calls forever, but you couldn't carry a relationship like that.

Jace had looked into colleges on the West Coast, he wasn't oging to lie. He didn't have much holding him here, certainly not his parents. But New York was the only home he had ever known, and he had Jon, Alec, and Izzy, not to mention his other friends. He'd be willing to go there for school, but ultimately, he saw his life here in New York. And yeah, if he wanted to play pro-football one day that wouldn't be so easy, but ultimately, he saw himself with a family of his own living in New York.

And even though they had only been together a couple of weeks, he saw it with Clary.

And not in the typical fashion of their my first love and my forever, but in the way that he had known for years, knew what it was like to live with her and live without her and knew what he wanted.

The only real question was what she wanted.

Besides to win this volleyball game he was missing. She was smiling as she played, oblivious to his less than happy thoughts. Sebastian and her were winning, according to the flipbook scoreboard, but only by 2 points. First to 25, and the score was 13-11.

Clary served the ball flawlessly over the net and into the sand at the younger boy's feet. He hadn't even moved forward. Jack and him were laughing, noticeably tired from playing and amused by it. Clary's next serve was a lot less harsh, floating over the net and to Jack who passed it up to his teammate before hitting the passed ball over the net. Sebastian missed his block and Clary had to lay out her body to keep it up before scurrying back to her feet so she could hit the ball over from the back row.

"See, this is why we said she's the best," Jon said as they watched her hit sail over Jack's blocking hands and into the sand in the back corner. "Go Clare!"

"Okay but like imagine if they were on the same team," Izzy said over the clapping. "They'd be unstoppable."

Jace didn't say anything, too busy watching Sebastian high five Clary, holding on to her hand for an excessive amount of time. Clary was grinning widely, looking unusually giddy as she let him hold her hand, tugging it back and forth in excitement.

Feeling irrationally irritated, Jace leaned back on to the hill so that he was staring at the starry night.

He prayed that Clary would make do of her promise and help him paint his ceiling so that he was reminded of her every night, if he wasn't already thinking of her.

From what he could hear, her next serve was an ace, meaning that Jack and co. weren't even close in attempting to return serve. He sat back up.

15-11.

Sebastian and her won the game 25-16 and Jace watched him pull Clary into a celebratory hug before they moved to shake the other's hands. The small crowd that had formed either left or stepped onto the court to play themselves as Clary made her way over to them, thankfully Sebastian free.

She high fived both Jon and Iz before settling back in between Jace's legs, her head resting on his shoulder. He hugged her tightly, taking comfort in the sound of her voice as she talked to the other two without actually hearing any of it.

"Want to go get ice cream?" She asked him, scratching his scalp for his attention.

"At the shack?" He questioned, craning his head back to look at her as she nodded. "Yeah."

The two of them said their goodbyes to Jon and Iz who had started their own conversation and made their way to the shack that was close by. There was a little ice cream section that was always rotating flavors and today they had vanilla, orange sherbert, and cookie dough.

Jace got his cookie dough in a cone and Clary got her sherbert in a dish before they headed back outside, making their way to an empty hammock.

Jace wondered how best to bring up the whole college thing without dropping a weight on her.

They sat across the hammock, both of their feet on the ground as they rocked, his arm around her delicate frame.

"I think I'm going to bail tomorrow," Clary said with her mouth around her spoon. "Running doesn't sound too fun."

He pouted. "You're going to leave me all alone with Jon."

"Next weekend it will just be us," she offered. "Since Jon will be back home.

"I'm sorry you can't join him."

"That's okay, I'm excited for when I go with you, maybe I'll get to meet some of the people I hear so much about."

"Only if I am in a sharing mood." He ducked down to kiss her softly, tasting the orange on her lips. She pulled back with a grimace.

"I hate cookie dough."

Jace laughed, going back to his almost finished cone. "So, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Both of her eyebrows rose as she shifted around so that her legs were in his lap. "What's up?"

"Jon and Izzy were talking earlier," he started, looking away from her as he awkwardly ran his hand through his hair, trying to find the words. "They told me you were looking at colleges here in New York."

She looked slightly relieved before she nodded. "Yeah, honestly I'm not really looking at any schools in California."

"Well, why not?"

"There's no reason to really," she said with a shrug. "I want to spend at least part of my life with my dad and my brother, this two months a year thing really sucks."

"I'm sorry," he said before he could help it.

"Don't be," she argued quickly. "I'm glad my parents are happy, I just wish things were different."

He pressed a kiss against the side of her head. "Me too."

"I've actually been accepted to a few places," Clary confessed after a moment. "But I'm still waiting to hear back from several colleges."

"Sounds like you have applied to a lot of schools."

"Yeah, and about an equal amount of schools reached out to me after that big art case I won last year."

"You're so fucking brilliant." He said, in awe of her as always.

"So are you."

They kissed again, but this time Clary didn't complain when they separated about the ice cream. "Jon told me the both of you are really considering Penn State."

"Yeah, it's probably the school I'm leaning towards the most. But I also like Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Pitt, but those just keep getting further and further from home."

"Syracuse out of the running then." she teased, leaning into him.

"Maybe not anymore."

Her face furrowed. "I hope you wouldn't base your plans off me."

"Well, why not?" Jace couldn't help but demand.

"Because it's just college, we always have after." She spoke slowly and unsure of herself.

"But if I go pro I'm not going to have much control over where I end up."

"And if we're still together I'll just go with you, I can do art anywhere."

He sucked in a breath, surprised even though that was what he had been hoping for. "You'd be okay with that?"

"I've always wanted to travel, besides, it's not like I'm not used to having to travel to see my family."

"And your mom?" He questioned.

She bit her lip. "I talked to her earlier today and I don't think Sam and her are doing too good right now."

His eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, they've been arguing a lot and she said he's been distant lately."

"Jeez, Clare, I'm sorry."

"So am I," she said, soundly a little shaky. "But mostly I can't help but hope something happens so she has no reason to stay there once I graduate."

"You want her to come to New York?"

"She misses it a lot, misses her old friends and Luke, and the feeling of home. She told me that she was childish to run so far away but she was just so confused and young at the time, she had plans to move back before she met Sam and fell in love with him."

"Is it wrong that now I kind of hate Sam?"

"Maybe, but I feel the same way." She curled up on his lap so that her head was on his chest. "But then I would have had to say goodbye to Simon and that probably would have killed me, I hadn't even known you guys back then."

Jace laid his head on top of hers. "Life is so unfair."

"It's shown me too many beautiful things and now I'm stuck."

He hastened to reassure her, feeling bad that he had brought this all up. "You'll figure it out one day, and so will we, this school year is going to be the same old same."

"But even better. Jon and I have done a lot of convincing lately about spending the holidays together, our last ones before we turn 18."

"Are you coming here then?"

"For Thanksgiving, and earlier if Jon is still in playoffs."

"I will purposefully lose to him if that's what it takes," Jace promised, only half kidding.

"And mom said it's cool if you come with them at Christmas, though I'm afraid there won't be any snow."

"That's okay," he said, leaning in to capture mouth in another quick kiss. "I'm sure it will be better than whatever else my parents had in store."

"Valentine and Jocelyn under the same roof with Sam?" She teased, rubbing his nose with hers. "What could go wrong?"

His heart swelled with the images. "As long as I'm with you, I don't really care."

"You're so corny," she rolled her eyes even as her cheeks flushed.

"I'm being serious," he pouted, only smiling after she kissed him again. "At least we have something to look forward to this school year."

"Yeah, and Spring break!" She reminded him. "This year is going to fly."

"Yeah, and maybe I can fly out for Prom or something," he said, biting his lip. "Not that we need to know now."

"Let's not work next summer," she said, jumping on his unnecessary planning. "As fun as this is, I want to feel like I live in New York again."

"I don't think I could get away with it again anyway, not with college workouts and such," he said, which had also been something he had been thinking of.

"But until then, I just want to enjoy every second of this summer with you," Clary told him before kissing him again, apparently with a very good idea of how she wanted to do that. And it wasn't like he had any complaints as his fingers started undoing her braids, desperate to be tangled in her curls. All worries vanished from his mind as she chased them away with her mouth and her body, pressed tightly against him. It was easy to forget just how precious his time with her was when he was so wrapped up in how amazing she felt.


End file.
